The Phantom of the Hospital
by In the House
Summary: Lisa Cuddy had many plans and expectations for her residency at PPTH. None of them had counted on that voice in the shadows. Standalone story; nothing to do with my series.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Happy New Year, readers! Yes, I'm still here. The unexpected non-writing project that has taken so much time over the last weeks is still in process, but it's in other people's hands right now. Any day that needs my attention, it will still jump the line and get priority. This is something very good, just time consuming. But much of my legwork in it is done, so I'm getting back down to writing, both giving Mom's book a final polish and starting some fanfiction again.

A note about this story. I've had in it mind for a couple of years since seeing a wonderful live production of Phantom. It isn't very long, and there are other stories in my series that we'll get to after this one, but it's a nice little side journey that simply insisted on being written. Beware that anything is up for change from the TV series, including character ages, backgrounds, and the physical structure of PPTH.

I do not own House or the Phantom of the Opera musical. Wish I did, though.

Updates as I can. Again, it's a fairly short ride, nothing like the length on Pain or even on Verdict. Enjoy!

(H/C)

"We welcome our new first-year residents to PPTH," the administrator said. "As you know, this hospital prides itself on both compassionate and clinically excellent medicine. We are sure that you . . ."

Lisa Cuddy tried to pay attention out in the seats in the auditorium, but the woman had a voice that droned on, little inflection to it, and she found her mind wandering in spite of herself.

PPTH. She had been accepted into their residency program, and few were. Not that that had surprised her; her performance through medical school had been excellent because she wouldn't have accepted anything else. Nor would her parents. No, Lisa Cuddy was well on her way to being a SUCCESS, in capitals. The prestige of medicine meant less to her than the personal satisfaction of a goal efficiently attained. To push yourself, demand your best, and deliver it on schedule, with a bonus of helping other people along the way: That was fulfillment. She was looking forward to not only her residency but the rest of her life, which so far was running admirably to her plans.

"One thing I must mention." The woman's voice for the first time picked up some emphasis, and Cuddy focused. "You are most likely already aware of the back story at PPTH. It was once a small private hospital owned by a billionaire, Dr. Richard Carter. Dr. Carter in his will left his entire fortune to further develop this hospital, specifying that a state-of-the-art multispecialty facility be built alongside and attached to his own private building and that his original smaller structure be left intact instead of being torn down. However, by the terms of that same will, the original building can no longer be used. It is to be maintained structurally as needed but sealed off to general access. The doors to the old wing are locked, ladies and gentlemen, and they shall remain so. None of you need to be in that area, so don't even try. Anyone found over there unauthorized will be disciplined by the Board of Directors. Your individual department heads will be meeting with you this afternoon after lunch break. Once again, welcome to PPTH, and we are glad to have you as part of our team."

"That's not the real reason," Dr. Evelyn Smithers announced to her table over lunch. She was a local to Princeton and therefore in attending residency here was coming back home. "Why that side is locked up, I mean. Everybody in town knows that Dr. Carter was crazy."

"There's a difference between eccentric and truly crazy," Cuddy pointed out.

"Oh, he was definitely crazy. Some people can seem so normal on the surface, but push their buttons, and they become totally irrational."

Cuddy shuddered. The thought of becoming totally irrational was a nightmare for her. "You knew him?"

"Not personally; he died when I was eight. But I've heard stories. Everyone has."

"Dr. Carter was good enough to cure several people at his small facility here," Dr. David Henderson protested. "Challenging cases, too. He liked taking the problem ones. He can't have been too crazy if he was such a good doctor."

"Oh, I don't know," another resident at the large table said. "I've known a few doctors in med school that I wasn't too sure about, and it wasn't because of their medicine. I'd trust them to operate on me but not out in general life."

"Exactly," Smithers said. "But when Dr. Carter was so sick in his last two years, nobody could cure him. Not even him."

Henderson shrugged. "In case you didn't notice in med school, that tends to happen to patients, even nowadays. Science hasn't eradicated death yet."

Smithers pushed on, determined to make her point. "Anyway, now the old building is haunted."

Cuddy shook her head. "Haunted? Come on. Ghosts are just a figment of an overactive imagination."

"No, it's haunted. Anybody who grew up in Princeton knows that. Dr. Carter's spirit is still wandering around over there, trying to diagnose himself."

"If that's the case, why isn't he haunting the doctors who failed to cure him?" Henderson pointed out.

"And why would he put that clause in his will?" Cuddy added. "He wasn't dead yet; he couldn't have known if he'd come back. You think he planned in advance to haunt it and sealed it up for himself? If there were ghosts, and I still say there aren't, they would go after people to draw attention to themselves, not just live isolated with all these candidates for haunting right next door."

"It's haunted," Smithers insisted.

Cuddy rolled her eyes. This one obviously wasn't going to be much of a doctor if she was apt to see ghosts instead of focusing on expanding her education in the area of things that really did exist, like medicine. "Well, it was a pleasure meeting you all. I'm sure I'll see you around the hospital. Now, I'm heading up to Endocrinology."

She efficiently bussed her dishes from the table and then walked out of the cafeteria, but as she waited for the elevator, she found herself replaying that conversation.

Haunted?

"Good grief," Cuddy said. She'd expected better of anyone intelligent enough to get a residency here. The elevator opened, and firmly dismissing ghosts, not that they existed anyway, she entered and pushed the button to her future for the next few years.


	2. Chapter 2

Cuddy found her residency interesting, educational but well within her capabilities. She enjoyed working with the different cases and getting more hands-on experience in her field. PPTH was living up to its reputation as a good hospital to study at.

It was also, to her disgust, more superstitious than expected. She quickly learned that Smithers had company in believing the place was haunted. She'd heard comments by several other assorted staff, too, taking routine things such as unexplained improvement or worsening of a patient, creaks in the night (all buildings creaked to some extent in temperature fluctuations, she tried to explain), and the occasional unsigned note that turned up with orders for a patient. A doctor could forget to sign or, with the ego common to many of them, assume the whole world knew their handwriting. Of course, an unsigned order would never be accepted without question, or shouldn't be, but those very rare notes had sometimes sparked a new direction on a case in discussion.

No, there were rational explanations for everything, including diseases, and she was determined to rationally and logically discover them.

Which is why this particular case was driving her crazy. It didn't seem to make sense, and she couldn't put the pieces together. To make matters worse, the head of endocrinology had said this morning, "So it's got you stumped, Cuddy?" His tone had been almost sarcastic glee, as if she could use taking down a peg or two.

She spent a few more hours going over test results, looking for anything she had missed, but finally, at a time when many physicians were heading home for the day, she found herself climbing the stairs to the roof. She had already discovered that it made a nice, private thinking spot. A couple of times, she had worked out a case up here, debating herself as if holding a single-person consultation with herself.

Dusk was settling rapidly over Princeton. She stood at the wall, looking out at the city, and then walked around the roof, at least the permissible parts. She wasn't pacing; Lisa Cuddy did not pace. She was simply thinking on her feet. She stopped at the fence, the one that divided the new from the old building, and looked across it into the forbidden territory. There was a lock on the gate that didn't appear to have been opened in years. Part of her wondered what actually was over there (in fact, not in superstition), but it was a minor part. That curiosity, after all, wasn't relevant to tonight's medical debate.

She walked off again, speaking to herself aloud. "All right, Cuddy. The patient has been hospitalized three times this year for pancreatitis. Insists he is a teetotaler, so alcohol isn't a factor. Insists he doesn't eat an unusual amount of fatty foods. What else that we haven't ruled out is a risk factor for chronic pancreatitis?"

"What about the labs?"

Cuddy nearly jumped out of her shoes. The voice was deep, rich, with a smoothness to it that sent a tingle up her spine. She spun around toward the door to the staircase, where the sound had come from. The light was fading now, but there was still enough to show her that absolutely no one was there.

She pulled herself up to her full height. "Whoever you are, don't come any closer. I've got mace, and I'm not afraid to use it." That was a lie; while she did have a can of mace, it was in her purse in her locker, not with her at the moment.

There was a soft chuckle, this time coming from just over the wall that looked out on the city. "Cuddy, Cuddy, Cuddy. I appreciate a show of spirit, but we're wasting time. I thought you were interested in diagnosing your patient."

"Who are you?" she demanded. "How do you know my name? If this is one of the doctors playing a trick. . ." She knew that it wasn't even as she suggested it. She had never heard that voice in her life before; of that much, she was certain.

"Of course I know your name," the voice responded, now coming from another shadow in another corner of the roof. She twirled around, trying to pin it down. "But again, we're wasting time. I did ask you a question."

She rewound mentally. "The labs?" This mysterious voice wanted not to harm her but to discuss the patient's labs? What kind of confrontation was this? And how did he keep switching locations?

"Ah, so you did hear me. Care to answer?"

She sighed. "Whoever you are, how do I know I can discuss patient care with you? Are you associated with the hospital?"

"In a way," he responded from yet another area of the roof. "Let's break this down: You're here, I'm here, and I don't see the HIPAA board at the moment. Don't see anyone else spying, either. So what's the harm in answering a simple question?"

She turned, still trying to pin down the location. This was ridiculous; nobody was this fast or silent. How did he keep changing corners? "Well," she began, "the labs show chronic pancreatitis."

"ZZZZTTT" He made a very effective buzzer sound. "You already said that. Don't repeat yourself, Cuddy. We're trying to figure out _why_. When you get stuck with a differential, try to head in new directions. Any new directions, even wrong ones, can work to shake you into a new way of thought. So what's unusual about his lab?"

She finally stopped twirling; she was making herself dizzy and not coming any closer to pinning down this shadowy voice. "Well, he's got elevated amylase and lipase, of course. His ALT isn't that high, though, so we doubt it's caused by gallstones."

"Good so far. What else?"

Her mind was taking hold of the medical dilemma again. "Lipid panel is high. The patient insists that he doesn't eat much fat, though. Could be a genetic component for high cholesterol."

"So the lipid panel is high. Is it _equally_ high?"

Her head came up as that anomaly reimprinted on her mind. "Actually, the triglycerides are by far the highest. The other levels are a bit elevated but not too bad."

"Bingo! Now you're thinking, Cuddy. So you have a patient who does not drink - allegedly, though remember that everybody lies - does not eat indiscreetly - ditto - and has had three attacks in a year of pancreatitis. His triglycerides are markedly high. Any history of pancreatitis in prior years, or did it just start?"

"It just started this year," she mused. She was thinking fiercely. Something, somewhere from a textbook was tickling at her brain.

"Any other non-abdominal symptoms that he's mentioned?"

"He's felt a bit down lately, but he did have a breakup recently. He thought it was due to that."

"Have you talked to his ex? What's her take?"

She faced the current location, if there was one, of that voice. " _No_ , I haven't talked to the ex. He hardly gave us permission for that."

"Permission, smermission. There's a source of data there that could help you. For one thing, which came first, the chicken or the egg?"

"What?" She sorted through that. "You mean, did symptoms contribute to his breakup instead of his breakup causing symptoms?"

"Precisely. Now there's an interesting theory. But discarding the ex for the moment, since you would never do anything so rebellious as try to get information from her on the side, let's go back to that lab. Triglycerides are high. Very high. What does that remind you of, combined with chronic pancreatitis with no prior history before this year and with depression?"

Again, there was the feeling of something almost there, something she'd read somewhere. She tried fiercely to get it. "Help me out here," she said. "If you know, that is."

He chuckled. "Oh, I've got a theory. And you are slowly approaching it. You have potential, Cuddy; you just need some experience."

She sighed. "We're talking about the patient, not about me. If you think you know what he's got, why not say so?"

"Because this process is good for you. He isn't going to die in the next fifteen minutes, and you, if you push yourself, will become a better doctor. I assume you did a physical exam?"

She rolled her eyes. "Of _course_ I did a physical exam."

"Notice anything? The eyes, Cuddy. Notice anything in particular about the eyes?"

The _eyes_? Most exams by all the residents had been focused on his abdomen, other than the standard neuro checks such as for uneven pupils. But wait a minute, there _was_ an impression of something odd about his eyes. She replayed the latest exam mentally. The veins in the retinas might have appeared unusual. What was it about them that tickled her memory?

"Lipemia retinalis," she said as the light bulb went off. "I need to go do another exam and really look this time, but I think he might have familial chylomicronemia syndrome."

"Well done, Cuddy," the voice replied. "Like I said, you do have potential."

She turned for the staircase, eager to go test her new theory, then stopped. "Wait a minute. Who are you?"

"What does it matter? Just consider me a tutor, if you will."

"You have to have a name," she insisted.

There was a long pause, and his voice almost held a note of sadness when he finally replied. "My name doesn't matter now."

"But what do I call you?"

The sadness disappeared as quickly as it had come, leaving an almost playful note. "You may call me Maestro. Maestro of Medicine."

Cuddy shook her head. "Oh, come on. You have a name." Silence. She looked around, not that she had seen a thing so far. "Are you still here?" Silence. She sighed. "All right, although that's ridiculous. Thank you, Maestro."

"Anytime." That response seemed to come from the emerging stars above, not from a corner of the roof at all. She looked skyward, then gave up and turned for the door. She had to go check her theory on this patient.

It only occurred to her later, after verifying milky veins in the patient's retinas, that she might have bumped into Smithers' ghost.

Now _that_ thought was ridiculous. Even the most imaginative of her colleagues had never described having full-length medical conversations with voices in the shadows. No, there had been somebody up there, someone possibly talented in ventriloquism as well as obviously brilliant in medicine. And sooner or later, she would find out what his name really was.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Hi, readers! This is the first chapter ever posted from my brand new house. The unexpected replacement of the old house on my land is what has been consuming my time the last four months. Infinite details and more of a process than I had expected, but it's done now.

Mom's book, which was bumped down temporarily on the priority list to deal with the urgent house situation, now resumes the first position. I'm in final polishing and review, and it is due to the publisher on April 9th, which would have been Mom's birthday. The date is self chosen, but the publisher knows about it and is counting on it, so there is a final push to make sure that is ready. Book will hopefully be out late summer.

Meanwhile back at fanfiction, this story and the remaining ones in line for my series are fine. They just have to find allotted time as available. Patience is a virtue, as Mom always said - then laughed, because it was a virtue she didn't have much of, either.

Happy almost spring! Enjoy this short bite, and I'll get more ASAP. Really hadn't meant to break this chapter here, but I wanted to give you something.

(H/C)

The next several months were the most deliciously challenging and frustrating that Cuddy had ever known in her life.

The Maestro pushed her, picked at her, sometimes mocked her, but her medical education grew in leaps and bounds. She no longer even rolled her eyes at the title of Maestro of Medicine. He merited it. Some of her attending physicians and her fellow students had started asking how she was suddenly thinking so well outside the box, and she simply said she had a new tutor and changed the subject. No way was she going to tell them that she conducted medical differentials with a disembodied voice up on the roof.

For all the medical stimulation, though, there were clear lines that she could not cross. Any personal question at all made the Maestro lock up. No name, no background. He also was annoyingly unpredictable. There were times she went up to the roof with a question, and he never responded. There were also times when she had decided he wasn't there, and he abruptly joined her several minutes into her self differential. She was never sure if he had just arrived or if he had been there all along but perversely silent.

He also definitely had good days and bad days. Not with the medicine; that was unfailingly brilliant. But some times, his patience was even less, his voice sharper and with an obvious undefined strain. Once or twice, he had broken off in mid sentence with a quick catch of breath, then resumed after a moment. Asking him if anything was wrong was pointless. He could shut down on her in nothing flat. She was learning to gauge from his tone when to walk more carefully around him.

That voice haunted her dreams now. Even in her dreams, annoyingly, she could never see him. He was always just out of reach.

She was thinking of his eccentricities this evening as she headed up to the roof. She had a challenging patient whom she thought he would enjoy as well as be helpful on. She climbed the stairs eagerly, then opened the door. The world tonight was hung between stars and storm, half of the sky studded with diamonds even in the city lights, the other half dark and ominous. She studied the approaching darkness, wondering how long it would take to get her, wondering if it would affect him. His bad days seemed more tied to weather than to anything else she could peg down, though the correlation still wasn't 100%.

She turned away from the gathering clouds and looked around the roof. "Maestro," she whispered. Nothing. "Maestro!" She let herself get a little louder. She walked around, trying a few different locations, though she had never been able to assign a direction to his voice. "I need to talk to you if you're here. Maestro. Maestro!"

"Maestro? Have you got an orchestra hidden up here?"

She spun around at the unexpected voice behind her. A man was standing in the doorway to the stairwell, having just opened it. "Hello, Lisa," he said, smiling.

It took a moment, but then she remembered the eyes and the manner. "James. James Wilson."

He stepped forward. "You do remember me. Who is the Maestro?"

"Nothing. I was just thinking out loud." He looked unconvinced, and she quickly changed the subject. "What are you doing here?" He had lived on her street, had been a young crush back in her childhood days, but he had moved away when she was 13, and she hadn't seen him since.

"I'm a doctor now," he said proudly. "A resident, at least. Just joined the hospital with the newest crop." He came a little closer, his warm, chocolate eyes studying her with appreciation. "You've grown up. You're beautiful, Lisa."

"You've grown up, too," she replied. He was dashingly handsome now, beyond childhood awkwardness, with the same winning charm she remembered and extra layers added to it. "What's your specialty?"

"Oncology," he said. "I thought I recognized you a little bit ago in the hallway, but you were heading for the stairwell so quickly, you didn't turn around when I called."

"Sorry. I didn't hear you." Those eyes had made her tingle inside at times even back when she was 13.

He put a hand on her arm. "I'd love to catch up. We have a lot of missing years to fill in, both of us. Could I buy you dinner?"

"Sure." He had been a good friend and a little more. She would enjoy catching up with his life. "I need to pick up a few things at my locker, though."

"I have a couple of loose ends to tie up, too. Meet you in the lobby in 15 minutes?"

"That sounds fine. See you then."

He gave her a hug. "I've never forgotten you, Lisa," he said softly. "I'm glad we've reconnected." He backed away, smiled again, then turned and reentered the stairwell.

Cuddy stood there for a moment, lost in memory. James Wilson of all people. She couldn't say she had thought of him all the time through the years, but she hadn't forgotten, either. She smiled to herself. "Well, well, well," she said aloud. "Tonight, for once, you're off the clock, Lisa. Let's just enjoy it." Tomorrow would be soon enough on the medicine; her patient wasn't critical, just challenging. She certainly had a right to a night out once in a while. All of her colleagues teased her that she didn't know how to enjoy herself.

She started for the stairwell herself.

"Cuddy."

She froze. That voice. It still made her shiver, even after months. "Maestro." She turned around, expecting to see nothing as always. "Maestro, I have to meet a..."

She stopped dead, staring. There just across the gate was a figure, still in the shadows but visible. Tall, quite tall. Cloaked. She took a few steps, wondering if she was seeing things.

"Cuddy," he said again. "Come here." His eyes as she got closer were burning, intense. Thunder rumbled behind her from the approaching storm.

"Maestro," she whispered. James Wilson was forgotten in the moment. She reached out across the fence that marked forbidden territory, and he met her hand halfway, and he was substantial, warm, alive, and for the first time, in every way, there.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Sorry for the delay. You all got preempted by my Dad, still fighting stage IV cancer but doing much better than his lowest point last fall. Fanfic can wait.

But I do love this story, and I promise, it will be completed. Short update now, hopefully more within this next week.

(H/C)

His hand gripped hers back with full pressure, and that voice tickled her ear as she leaned over the fence toward him. "Close your eyes."

She stiffened up, some remnant of rationality asserting itself against the spell of the moment. "What? Why?"

"Because you can't see anything otherwise."

She studied his face, so close, just across that barrier but within two feet of hers. The evening storm light was bad and diminishing by the minute, but she could see that he was handsome in a rugged sort of way. The lines of his face might have been carved by a master sculptor. Intelligence, strength, pain.

Pain? The thought had joined the mental list automatically, and she tried to dissect it further on one level, even while protesting. "What do you mean I can't see anything otherwise? If I close my eyes, I _really_ won't be able to see anything."

"Temporarily, yes. But the results at the end of the darkness will, I think, be worth it to you. Wouldn't you like a tour of my world?"

The prohibition from the PPTH powers that be flitted briefly through her mind and as quickly left. Their silly rule compared to the opportunity finally in front of her wasn't close to being an equal contest. "Yes," she said.

"Then close your eyes." She studied his for almost a full minute, then finally closed her lids. Lightning sparked in the sky over the city, briefly raising the light level even with her eyes shut.

There was an odd-sounding click, and then he gripped her elbow. "Three steps forward," he told her.

She took three steps, trusting him that she wouldn't run into that gate. No, the gate was suddenly out of the way. She stopped and wondered how he had done that; she'd studied the lock many times. It had the unmistakable rusty patina of long disuse. Would he really notice if she cracked her eyelids for a brief glance?

In the next moment, his hands were at her head, and something soft went across her eyes, thoroughly blindfolding her. "Hey!" She backed up, and that time, she did hit the gate. Retreat was shut off. "I closed my eyes. Don't you trust me?"

There was an oddly extended pause. "Everybody lies, Cuddy," he said. "It's just temporary. Or I can put you back across onto the other side right now. But if I do, you'll never know where we were about to go."

Damn the man or ghost or whatever he was. She gritted her teeth, pride and independence warring against her own curiosity and his magnetism. He had fastened the blindfold, but they remained motionless as he politely waited for her decision. "All right," she conceded finally. "But it's temporary."

"Yes. Everything is temporary when you come down to it."

"So now you're a philosopher? What _is_ your name, anyway?"

"I've told you. Maestro of Medicine."

"And your parents called you that?"

He backed away physically and mentally, though he kept hold of her elbow with his left hand, and his voice had a harsh edge when he spoke. "Let's go." As if to agree with him, the skies opened at that point, and the rain began.

He started forward, guiding her carefully but still almost at a distance. Annoyance at his evasion and at the blindfold quickly yielded to curiosity and growing concern. As they started walking, it was immediately obvious that he was lame. This wasn't an acute injury but a long-standing pattern, a stride he knew well. No hesitation, no tentativeness; in fact, he had a good bit of speed and an odd sort of grace to it. But his right leg, the one farther away from her, clearly wasn't working normally or anywhere close to it. She could also hear the beat of a cane supplementing each step.

He stopped them, opening a door, and then they were out of the rain. "What's wrong with your leg?" she asked.

He came to a dead stop, though his breathing accelerated as if he had started running. After a lengthy silence, he snapped, "Do you want to see this world, or not?"

Never had he locked up that much on her, not even when she asked for his name. "Yes," she replied. "I didn't mean to offend . . ."

"If you want anything past this moment with me, hear this. _Never_ mention my leg again." He resumed forward motion, his limp worse for the first few strides. "Stairs here. Ten steps down."

She reached out with her left hand, the arm he didn't have hold of, and found a railing. Stairs were clearly much harder for him, but she had learned her lesson and followed his painful progress in silence. Once at the bottom, he walked on without speaking.

The route was labyrinthine, and it didn't take her long to deduce that he was deliberately making it challenging. She was doing her best to keep track of turns, but it soon became impossible. She had the feeling he turned her in the middle of rooms sometimes, not even at adjoining hallways. Then they boarded an elevator. She couldn't resist a question there.

"The power isn't shut off over here?"

"Actually, no. By terms of the will, they have to keep the building in fair condition. They just can't use it. Buildings with all power and heat shut off deteriorate faster. They keep the elevators functional when needed for taking maintenance equipment on."

"But it doesn't require a key or something to activate it?"

"Keys are overrated," he responded. The elevator opened, and he took her out for another walk of a few minutes, then reentered an elevator, either that one again or another. He definitely was trying to disorient her. Unfortunately, it was working. Anyone's sense of direction would have trouble following all this.

"What about power outages?" she asked as they took their sixth elevator ride.

"What about them?"

"If the power happened to go off when you were on the elevator, nobody would know you were stuck over here. It could be hours until rescue. Unless...is there anybody else here?"

He gave a cold, humorless laugh. "Wondering about ghosts and how many of us there are?"

She couldn't resist answering that comment. "So you're a ghost?" Her tone was dubious.

Another pause, and then he gave her the same answer he had when she had asked that first night if he was associated with the hospital. "In a way."

"Oh, come on. You're as real as I am." She reached over to touch his flesh just for emphasis. "But what would you do if you got trapped in an elevator with the power out? How would you get help?"

He shrugged, and she felt the motion through his guiding arm. "Help is overrated just like keys are."

"So you could get out yourself?"

"Either that or just stay there. Not like my schedule is too full anyway. I'm not going to miss an appointment or anything." The taste of bitterness was back in his tone.

"Is anybody else over here?" she asked again.

Once again, he dodged. "All sorts of us. Former doctors, former patients, spirits, poltergeists, phantoms. I even saw Elvis down the hall once."

She gave up for now on pursuing a straight answer. She was getting tired of being blindfolded, and he was simply getting tired. She could tell that this odyssey wasn't doing much for his bad leg. "If you're just trying to scramble my sense of direction, you've succeeded quite a while ago, so can we please just get to wherever we're going, Maestro?"

He chuckled. "Patience isn't your strong point, Cuddy."

"It hardly seems to be yours, either, from our conversations," she shot back.

"You do have spirit. That's what I've liked about you from the beginning. Also a mind, and you aren't afraid to use it." He led her out along a few more halls or rooms or whatever they were, and then he stopped. There was another click, and he guided her through a door. She heard it close behind her.

Then his hands were at her head once again, and the blindfold came off. "Welcome," he said.


	5. Chapter 5

When the world came into focus, Cuddy first turned her attention to him, not the room. He stood there with a slight smile that was somehow mocking and yet a bit tentative at the same time. The light in the room was a single bulb, but it still revealed the picture.

Tall, yes. Lean, even thin, but with a sense of strength in his form. His face had weathered a thousand storms and survived them. His eyes were remarkable, very clear, vivid blue. Her survey finally came to his right leg. He carried a cane, and he was favoring that side even as he stood there.

As soon as her gaze reached his leg, he turned away, breaking the moment, and walked across the room. She followed his motion for a few strides, then finally looked around them.

They were apparently in a large old office, and it looked like a cross between a prison cell and a library. There was only one simple bed, the sort on wheels that folds up into half. A microfridge served as nightstand next to it. On top were a lamp, a jar of peanut butter, half a loaf of bread, and five books.

Books were everywhere. They spilled over the cases and formed piles on the floor. She glanced at a few titles. Not all were in English, but what she could read were mostly medical. There were also several professional journals. She picked up one, noting the address label. PPTH. It was from two years ago.

She ended up over at the desk. It was old, sturdy, a wooden structure that looked like it had been here since the beginning of time and would last after the end. On the desk were yet more books, as well as a laptop and printer. There was also, half buried, a nameplate. Dr. Richard Carter. She traced the letters with her finger. "This is his old office."

"One of them. How do you know I don't have more?"

"You aren't Dr. Carter's ghost, whoever you are. There's no such thing as ghosts." She picked up another book, this one again in some foreign language. "Have you read all of these?"

"Of course. Books aren't much use just laying around closed."

"The magazines. They came over from the main hospital. Do you just walk over there and exchange them sometimes?"

He grinned. "No, I float through the walls. When I get bored with that, I just teleport. I can also call them over here, and they flutter through the air at night."

She faced him squarely. "Do it now, then, while I'm watching. Let's see that fluttering first hand."

He laughed. "Why should I want a new magazine at the moment with you here? Lots of magazines, very few guests."

"Yeah, right. Convenient excuse." She wandered around the room, stopping at the small bed and microfridge. "You live on peanut butter sandwiches?"

He shrugged. "Keeps body and soul together."

"Why don't you teleport some decent food over from the hospital cafeteria?"

"Because books are more interesting than food."

"Books aren't required for life. Food is."

He shook his head. "Books _are_ required. Never stop learning, Cuddy. Never. Once that goes, a person truly has lost everything."

She opened the fridge to look in. Three bottles of water, a package of bologna, and some cheese slices. She shuddered.

He spoke from another section of the room - really, for someone with a bad leg, he could move amazingly quickly and quietly. "See, I don't eat peanut butter all the time."

"Still, this must get monotonous. How long have you lived here?"

"You could look up the date yourself. Dr. Carter's death is on record."

"You aren't Dr. Carter. Not only are there no ghosts, but I actually did look up the will once and some of the newspaper stories down at the Princeton library. I found a picture of him." She turned to survey him. "There's no physical resemblance at all. You're also too young. And you are much better looking than he was."

He straightened up a little, correcting that lean on his cane. She pushed on. "So who are you?"

The new surge of energy and pride went out of him like a popped balloon. "I'm a ghost," he answered. "Simply a ghost. Who I was doesn't matter now."

"You are not a ghost," she insisted, but she knew that he wasn't going to give her any more. He had the highest walls of anyone she had ever met. She instead turned again to the books, shivering slightly. The power might not be turned off over here, but the heat was hardly kept to comfort level, either. It was probably about 55 degrees. There was a thermostat on the wall, but he hadn't turned it up. That was the first thing tonight that she completely understood. Of course he would try to use as little electricity as possible to avoid notice. Using the elevators, something required by his leg, was pushing it.

There were a few jackets laying to the side, and she counted three blankets on the small, unmade bed. He wasn't oblivious to the cold.

The lowest book on the fridge, she realized, wasn't a book at all. It was a photo album. She opened it, curious, and then stared at herself.

Pictures of her. Some from the roof, a few from other locations in the hospital. In none of them had she been looking toward the camera; she clearly wasn't even aware of the photographer's presence. Most were at a distance, even with a zoom lens, but she was unfailingly the focus. She shivered again, not with cold, and for the first time, part of her wondered about the wisdom of heading off into unknown parts with this man. Was he some crazed stalker?

In the next moment, music startled her. She jumped and turned. She hadn't even noticed the small piano earlier, surrounded as it was by piles of books, but now he was sitting there playing. The music reached out and invited her in, rhythmic, playful yet plaintive all at once. She walked over to him and stood there listening until he finished the piece. His technique was excellent.

"That was nice," she said when he stopped. "I've never heard that song before."

"I wrote it," he replied. After a moment, he went on, "I wrote it for you. It's a serenade."

She looked back over toward the pictures. "You've been watching me."

"You're worth watching," he replied. There was no threat in his voice, only a silky depth that in spite of herself made her shiver again, this time not from the temperature.

In the next moment, his face tightened up, and his hands twitched on the keyboard, starting to reach for his leg and then catching themselves. "No," he protested softly. "Not now, damn it."

"Maestro? Is something wrong?" She moved closer.

He straightened up in denial, pushing her away, but in the next second, his hands leaped for his leg, clawing at it. His face was twisted in pain, and in spite of the temperature, sweat broke out on his brow as she watched.

"Maestro?" He didn't react to her that time, and she moved around to his right side, kneeling, reaching out. His leg was rigid, locked into a spasm, the muscles quivering beneath her hands. He was digging at it with his own fingers but didn't seem to be getting anywhere, and she started trying to release the tortured muscles. It was like massaging iron. Part of his leg was actually _missing_ , she realized. It felt like a significant chunk of the thigh wasn't there at all, and what was left was trembling in insult.

She kept working. It seemed to take forever, but finally, his leg began to release under her hands. His breathing slowed, though still too fast, and he sat there on the piano bench with head bowed.

The moment when awareness of her finally overcame the pain was obvious. He jumped, pulling back. "Damn you," he snarled. "Leave me alone."

"I'm just trying to help." She looked around. "Do you have any kind of medicine? A heating pad or something?"

He awkwardly climbed off the piano bench on the other side, escaping her. "It doesn't matter."

"Yes, it does." She let him go but went over to look around again beside the bed. There was a bottle of Tylenol down on the floor between the fridge and the bed frame, and she picked it up. Tylenol? With an injury like that, all he had was Tylenol? There were also some beer cans under the bed.

She walked back over to him and offered the Tylenol bottle. His head was bowed; he wasn't looking at her. He accepted the bottle, opened it, and shook out four. She shuddered at the hepatic insult but didn't say anything.

He noticed anyway. " _Yes_ , I know what the recommended dosage is."

"I'm sure you do," she replied. "Whoever you are, you're definitely a doctor. You're the best doctor I've ever known."

He didn't reply, just standing there. When his breathing had finally leveled out and he had stopped sweating, he looked over at her. "So now you know it all."

It was her turn to laugh. "Know it _all_? Believe me, Maestro, I have more questions than ever after tonight."

"Yes, and I'm sure I know what most of them are about." He struck his cane on the floor harshly.

"That's not what I . . ."

He interrupted her. "What am I thinking? There's no future in my life, not even for me, much less anyone else." He pulled the blindfold out of his pocket. "I'm sorry, Cuddy. I'll take you back. Maybe that Dr. Wilson is still waiting around for your date."

The route back was shorter, though still deliberately disorienting, but throughout the walk, she couldn't get another word out of him. At the roof, he pushed her through the gate, and she heard the lock click harshly behind her. When she turned around as he pulled off the blindfold at the last moment, he vanished quickly, a limping shadow, and she was alone.


	6. Chapter 6

Wilson wasn't still around, and Cuddy made a mental note to present her apologies tomorrow. Meanwhile tonight, she went back to her apartment to think.

As she had told the Maestro, her questions had only multiplied. Who on earth was he?

Okay, Lisa, she told herself, work out what you do know. Make it a differential.

Fact #1: Whoever he was, he was a doctor. He had the most brilliant medical mind she had ever encountered in her entire education. She saw no possible other choice for his past vocation.

Fact #2: He was hiding over there. That was obvious enough, but from what? His leg? Society in general? He was definitely touchy about his leg, but why would that make him give up the chance to practice medicine? It almost seemed that it would work better the other way, the job providing a distraction and something for him to dig his teeth into.

Society in general? In spite of being a doctor, he definitely lacked bedside manner. Did he just not wish to appear crippled in front of people? Was he simply tired of dealing with humanity? She'd known her share of curmudgeon doctors in her education so far, and that answer still didn't quite seem to fit. None of them had gone so far as to exile themselves to a barren, lonely existence in an abandoned building.

Now that she thought about it, she remembered a point from her research on Dr. Carter. By the terms of his will, the same terms that stated that the old building was to be maintained but not used, his office was also to be kept locked and never entered. It was the one place in that building least susceptible to detection. If the Maestro wanted a hideout, he had picked a spectacular one.

But why? And he was lonely. The pain in his eyes and voice was much more than merely physical. Why shut himself off from the world? Why restrict his access to the medicine that he clearly loved, the puzzles if not the people?

She went to bed late, slept badly, and apologized to James Wilson the next morning, just saying that something urgent had come up. He accepted the excuse with an easy grace, commenting that doctors of course had that happen all the time, so it was bound to occur on occasion. His lack of resentment made her feel even more guilty for silently consenting to the misconception that whatever had come up had been a patient.

Cuddy did go out with him the next evening, and he was the perfect date: Charming, attentive, romantic. She could indeed unbend a little and enjoy herself, she realized. When Wilson wanted to set up a repeat, she didn't object.

She didn't hear anything from the Maestro for a few days, although she tried walking around the roof and calling him. She also purchased a few small food items beyond peanut butter or ham sandwiches, though she included at the last moment a Big Mac, carefully wrapped with extra insulation to keep it hot. She also included a packet of stick-on heat packs. She debated long before putting that last item in and nearly took it out anyway. She didn't want him to think she was just focusing on his leg. Finally, she wrapped her gift pack in a jacket for padding (though it was a jacket that would fit him) and tossed it lightly over the fence. She then left the roof, and when she came back an hour later, the bundle was gone.

It was three days after her visit to his lair that one of the attending doctors was out sick. Since another of the attendings was already on vacation, this left the hospital a little short handed, and in response, they called on an older doctor she hadn't met yet, one apparently nominally retired but still providing an extra set of licensed hands with the patients at PPTH in a pinch.

Dr. Nordstrom was old and bushy, with a wild mustache below twinkling eyes. Add a beard, and she could see him playing Santa Claus. He led them through rounds and discussion of all current patients, and he was obviously competent, the sort of steady, routine, soothing doctor that most patients probably enjoyed. He was just as plainly loving getting back into harness, even if only temporarily. After the morning's rounds, he came up alongside Cuddy as the other residents dispersed.

"Well done, Cuddy, well done!" he told her. "You keep it up, and you're going to make an excellent doctor. You have a refreshing way of trying to think of other possibilities, not just the obvious ones."

"Thank you," she replied.

"Yes, indeed, you have a lot of promise. A few of your comments almost reminded me of a fellow I knew a long time ago." His eyes refocused on the past. "I've never forgotten him. Now _he_ would have been spectacular. He had the same trick of thought but was even better than you at it. You had to work, were obviously pushing yourself today. He just naturally seemed to have other possibilities occur to him. What a mind he had!"

Cuddy tried not to show how much this old doctor now had her attention. Of course, this might be coincidence, but if so, it was a major one. "Where is he practicing now?" she asked, deliberately casual. "If he had that good a mind, he must have gone on to great things."

Dr. Nordstrom pulled himself up in mid reminisce. "He . . . developed some health issues and other problems," he stated sadly. "He never finished study."

Cuddy shook her head. "Sounds like he was a great loss to the medical world. Couldn't he still have been a research doctor or something, even if he couldn't actively work because of his health?"

"No, that . . . the whole situation was very unfortunate . . . he left medicine."

"What was his name?" Cuddy asked. He looked at her oddly. "I just wondered if anyone else here has ever mentioned him."

"I doubt it," Nordstrom replied. "There are some staff still here who knew him, but very few who miss him. Most were quite happy to be allowed to forget him." He looked beyond her into the past again and sighed. "His name was House. Gregory House."

 _Was_. "Is he dead?" Cuddy asked. She had never heard of a Dr. Gregory House.

Dr. Nordstrom came to attention. "I really must be getting on to lunch now. Thank you for a pleasant morning, Cuddy. Keep up the good work." He turned and left.

Cuddy stood there in the hallway so long that another resident passing by finally waved a hand in front of her face. "Hello? Anybody home?"

"Just thinking," Cuddy replied. She turned quickly and headed for the doctor's lounge. She had been hungry five minutes ago, but now she had an appetite for information, not food. Settling down at one of the computers there, she started digging through old medical databases and PPTH rosters.

Gregory House. He had been a fellow at PPTH until 10 years ago. His career had ended abruptly in his third year of fellowship, and then, as far as medical databases were concerned, he seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth.

If the Maestro and Dr. House were the same, could he possibly have been in self-imposed prison over there alone in pain for 10 years? Nordstrom had mentioned health problems, but those, of course, were not itemized in the professional databases.

Wait a minute. Nordstrom hadn't just mentioned health issues. He had added "other problems" to that list. Non medical problems?

On a long shot, she ran a search in general public sources, not limiting it to medical sites, and a few minutes later, she was staring at the computer screen, eyes wide, mind whirling.

He not only had developed health problems. He also was apparently wanted for questioning in a murder.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Sorry for the delay. It's been a wild and crazy month with several things going on from Dad's cancer through lawnmowers (that saga itself could be a movie, or, as my stepmother called it, a sitcom, and yes, taking loads of time) to work, and final details preparing for publication on Mom's book have taken all of what writing time I had. That will hopefully be out at the end of summer. Nonetheless, this story will be completed eventually.

Here's a short update. I'd hoped for a longer one and expected writing time on Memorial Day weekend, but I barely had time to turn around that weekend. More when I can.

Thanks for reading. This story is definitely a departure for me, but it just wouldn't let me alone. Glad you're enjoying it.

(H/C)

Cuddy spent all non hospital time the next day down at the local newspaper office, looking through their archives, though she did try to discuss a case with the Maestro earlier. It wasn't much of a case; she just wanted to hear his voice again. She had no intention of mentioning anything further to him, not until more research. She also by now could predict quite easily that if she simply confronted him and asked if he had murdered someone, he might retreat forever back into his solitary confinement and refuse to speak to her again. She couldn't stand the thought of never hearing from him again. However, on this day, either he really wasn't up there listening, or her case bait was inadequate. Her forced medical differential drew no response.

Down at the newspaper office, she pored through images of old issues on microfilm. Having a date from her rough internet search earlier, she pinned down her target window of newspapers easily and set out reading everything that had been printed on the case.

There was no question that the Maestro and Dr. Gregory House were the same. The picture was unmistakable.

House's landlord had been found murdered in House's apartment. They had had a tempestuous relationship anyway, and they had quarreled, with another tenant overhearing, just the day before. The topic that time had again been his piano playing being too loud at times, though the newspaper stated there were also several complaints from the unit below about House pacing with audible cane strokes throughout the night. Apparently, Cuddy concluded, the floors weren't insulated that well.

Audible cane strokes. The medical details were not the focus of the newspaper articles, of course, but to Cuddy as a budding doctor, they teased her, begging for more elaboration. She had already decided that the next day, Saturday, she would go down to the hospital archives and look up his old file. That was a blatant violation of HIPAA; curiosity was not sufficient reason in official eyes to read the medical records of someone. That was why she planned that research on a Saturday with lower weekend coverage, less people around. She herself had a day off on Saturday as far as her medical duties.

She also had a date Saturday night with James Wilson. Couldn't let herself forget that, but surely, reading one medical chart wouldn't take all day plus the night.

Per the newspaper coverage, House had had an "infraction" (she growled to herself over the spelling error even while reading; darned non-medical editors) in his leg some months earlier and hadn't been able to work since while he went through rehab. Thus the cane pacing and probably also the more frequent fortissimo piano playing as he had more time on his hands. Cuddy filled in the medical blanks easily: He was trying to find ways to cope with physical pain.

What about medicines? Hadn't any of his doctors helped him with pain management? Or had he been unwilling to accept it, resenting his new limitations? She still remembered the feel of that crater in his leg beneath her hands as she worked out his spasm. Major surgery and, she had no doubt, major pain.

Back to the records of the case, House's tension with the landlord had been rising the last few months, probably fueled some by pain and frustration on his part. Of course, this was a one-sided account; his landlord might well have been a curmudgeon himself. She couldn't guarantee that all the conflict credited to House, though the escalation probably was tied to his pain and physical condition.

The landlord had been found one afternoon when a UPS deliveryman arrived at House's apartment with a package. The door hadn't quite been shut and had opened to his knock, and the landlord lay in a puddle of blood in the living room floor, his head having been bashed in. There were a few clear cane marks as well as a footprint in the puddle, and then there were bloody cane/footprints leading to the kitchen sink. There, apparently, he had washed off the blood from cane and shoes, as no trail led any farther.

House had not been seen from that day on, not by anyone who admitted it, at least. He had attended therapy earlier that afternoon at the hospital, but after he left to go home, he vanished.

Cuddy reread all the stories, which gradually trickled off. The case remained open, but new news quickly shoved it to the rear pages, then out of the papers altogether. One more fact jumped out at her; it was mentioned that House's mother had died the morning of the murder. She had had a heart attack down in Lexington. The paper speculated whether that might be a contributing factor in pushing House over the edge.

Cuddy shook her head, trying to imagine House - the Maestro - committing a murder. He certainly was sharp, acerbic, impatient, outright ruthless at times, but she simply couldn't picture him picking up his cane or something else and hitting someone hard enough to bash his head in, not even fueled by physical pain and acute grief over his mother. In spite of all his testiness, he seemed to have more respect for life than that. He wanted to _fix_ people, even if he snarked about them while doing it.

So if he didn't, who did? Who else would have been in his apartment with the landlord? Was it a chance encounter, or was he framed?

No question, filling in gaps, that he had found the body prior to UPS finding it, assuming he was innocent of the murder. He had disappeared that very night. The timing had to be connected. So he came home from rehab that afternoon, walked in, found his landlord, maybe walked over for a closer examination to verify death, thus getting into the blood - then washed off the blood from shoes and cane and vanished forever? No attempt at defense? The paper said the landlord had been dead for a few hours. She could not imagine the Maestro killing someone, then calmly going to a rehab session. She couldn't imagine the Maestro killing someone at all.

But the question that burned the most for her after her research was, why on earth hadn't he made any attempt at defense? If he was innocent, why not call the police and say so? Running was almost an admission of guilt, and he had to have known it would be perceived as that. Why not put up a fight for himself?

Ten years. He had sentenced himself to ten years (so far) of solitary prison over there for a murder that she couldn't see him committing.

Why?


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Sorry for the long delay, but things have been crazy. I'm working seven days a week with my two jobs, plus interfacing with the publisher on Mom's book, as well as some major family happenings recently. This is exactly why I won't give a timetable or number of remaining chapters prediction on this story, though I do think we're over halfway. It will be finished as time allows, but I promise, it WILL be finished.

Welcome to a couple of new readers who have found my series recently. I can't send a reply to guest reviews, but I'm glad to know there are still people out there finding it. There will be more stories in the series soon as Phantom is done. Next up is called The Other Foot and has both a Cuddy plotline and a, drum roll, Stacy plotline. Those are two separate plotlines, but they do, of course, intersect at times. Patience is a virtue, as Mom always said. It was a virtue she didn't have, and I don't have much myself, so I do understand the anticipation wearing a little. :)

Enjoy more of Phantom. I will say that I have half-vacation (off of one job, not the other) first week of August for my birthday, so I am likely to have more time then for writing than I have lately.

Meanwhile, back at PPTH, Cuddy had just read the old newspaper records on the murder case where House's landlord was killed, and he was a suspect and fled.

(H/C)

The next day, Saturday, Cuddy slunk into PPTH, looking around surreptitiously. Nobody paid her much attention; staff was lower on weekends, and those there were involved fully in their jobs as, in the ebb and flow of hospital weekend traffic, this was apparently a flow weekend. Never was there a happy medium in the medical world; any hospital on weekends was either frantically busy or had on-duty doctors sitting around bored.

Cuddy wound up in the archives, the old files down in the basement dating back to a time when hard-copy charts were still the rule, not the exception. The big, vault-like room was empty, as she had anticipated. She looked up Gregory House on the computer, found his chart number, and retrieved the file. It was impressively thick.

Taking it to a table that was out of sight but within earshot of the door, she sat down. Her mind balked for just a moment, paying token tribute to the fact that she was about to violate HIPAA and would be fired on the spot if caught. The hesitation was brief. Part of her couldn't believe she was actually about to do this, but the larger part had to have some answers.

She opened the file and looked at his face sheet. The next of kin was listed as a Stacy Warner, also noting that she held POA. Correction, she had held POA. This was crossed out and marked "revoked" in bright red ink.

Under family contacts, his mother was listed but not his father. His mother, who had died in another state early on the day of his landlord's murder. Why hadn't he listed both of them? Possible clue there to his mysterious background. Cuddy carefully copied the address and phone number for Blythe House. She might try to track down House's father and see if he was still living.

The face sheet gave her little more info. Employer was listed as PPTH. House's age was about where she had pegged it, though he looked strained and borderline ill now as the Maestro. Small wonder, given medical problems plus the stress of the murder case hanging over his head all these years.

Why hadn't he fought that setup if he was innocent? And he had to be innocent. She simply couldn't imagine him committing that crime.

She started reading the medical records of the chart next. There was only one earlier record before the major hospitalization. House had had pneumonia once, treated with antibiotics routinely, and had gotten better.

The first ER report related to the infarction had her clenching her fists on the edge of the chart, punishing the innocent paperwork. House had presented with leg pain, unilateral, abrupt onset. He had been playing golf and had been struck down suddenly, he said, had nearly fallen over. The line in the ER had been long that day, and in spite of his stated pain levels at triage assessment, it was a few hours before he made it to being seen by a physician. When the doctor came in at last, he was taking a history, and House kept complaining about the pain and the delay. The ER doc knew House, and reading between the lines, Cuddy deduced that he didn't like him much. He probably hadn't been taking this too seriously. No ultrasound, not even a check for peripheral pulses. When the doctor finally had opened the drawer of the cart with pain meds, House had seized a needle and injected himself. That quickly, he was marked as a drug seeker, thus guaranteeing that any return ER visits would be suspect.

The final diagnosis on the ER report made the doctor's skepticism perfectly clear. #1, drug-seeking behavior. #2, right leg pain, strongly suspect psychosomatic.

With that documentation, the first domino in the chain to disaster had been given a push. Cuddy realized that she was actually tearing the ER report slightly in her grip, and she made herself relax her fingers enough to turn the page.

House had returned the next day, saying that the leg pain was back full force after the meds had worn off, and furthermore, his urine was dark. The ER doctor, a different one this time, carefully summarized his colleague's report from the day before and dismissed House with a prescription for antibiotics for a UTI. He refused to give any further pain meds. He documented House's vehement protest to this, phrasing that reaction in all the language that would clue any fellow doctor into his disbelief. Diagnosis was UTI and again, drug-seeking behavior. Once more, no diagnostics on the leg.

The next day, House was back, brought in this time by his girlfriend, Stacy Warner. A third ER physician drew the case. Her backing up House's story of severe pain carried a little bit more weight, but House's condition told its own tale by this point. He was diaphoretic, vitals all wildly abnormal, and he was slipping at times into borderline non responsiveness. Stacy insisted on an evaluation, and this doctor finally was willing to comply. He drew basic lab work, and the kidney functions were screwed up enough that House was admitted to the ICU on the spot.

From there, it was a progressive disaster. A scan of the leg finally revealed the clot, but it was too late with muscle death already apparent. The nephrotic injury was already severe, as well. If the clot were removed, the full backwash of necrotic waste trapped behind it would throw him into full renal failure. If it weren't removed, the pain would kill him. The doctor recommended amputation, and Cuddy found herself nodding sadly as she read. A few days earlier, there might have been alternatives, but by this point, with this scan and lab work, she had to agree with that medical recommendation.

Unfortunately, House didn't. He dug in with all the stubbornness she had seen him show as the Maestro, resisting appeals from Stacy and from multiple doctors. He even had a heart attack from the pain and stress to his system. Finally admitting he couldn't take the pain, he asked to be put into an induced coma to ride it out. As soon as he had been asleep, Stacy had used the POA to authorize a middle-of-the-road debridement surgery.

The op report had Cuddy's fingers punishing the innocent paper again, this time in sympathy more than anger. There was no question it had been necessary; most of his quad had already been dead. Still, this surgery had been a guaranteed lifetime sentence to pain, simply assisting in providing the lifetime in which to feel it.

House revoked the POA the same day he woke up after the surgery. From there, the record showed a painful course both physically and mentally. House was lashing out, angry at the staff, angry at Stacy most of all. To Cuddy's surprise, the one move that struck her as the most obvious was the one thing he hadn't done. He never filed a lawsuit for malpractice against PPTH. He could have won it easily; those ER reports showed clear negligence. Still, not even the threat of legal action was made.

She shook her head. Add that one alongside his running after the murder and making no stand in his own defense. The man was inexplicable at times.

He had made some progress in rehab and PT after the surgery, though it was apparent that full function was never going to return, nor full relief of pain. He had a very difficult course trying to find a pain med, insisting on his mind being clear. The drugs which worked made him fuzzy, per his report; the ones which didn't weren't strong enough. He tried several different combinations, settling on Vicodin a month before the murder. That seemed to work best so far, and there were even mentions a few times of his desire to resume work soon.

Then came the last day, that last PT appointment. Cuddy read the note four times over. It had been routine in every way for his new painful reality. No mention of extra tension beyond what he always showed. He apparently didn't know about his mother's death yet; it wasn't mentioned, at least, and he was his usual self.

There was simply no way that he had committed a murder before that appointment. No, he had been set up.

Why? By whom? She wrote down the names of the first two ER doctors, who had dismissed House's complaint without even investigating it. That first one especially had mentioned that he knew House. Of course, the Maestro quite possibly had offended colleagues right and left with his brilliant mind and impatience with slower ones, and she couldn't guarantee that a murder-worthy grudge didn't exist elsewhere or even here, but maybe it was a starting point.

Finally closing the chart, she carefully refiled it, then slipped back out of the archives. Not a soul had seen her.

She needed to get home and get ready for her date with Wilson, but her footsteps led her inexorably to the roof. "Maestro," she called softly. "Maestro!"

The reply came just as she was about to give up. "What are you doing here? You're off today."

The voice apparently originated over by the stairwell, but she turned and walked straight to that gate. After a moment, she could see him, standing well back, surrounded in shadows. "I just came in to...check on a patient."

"You're lying, Cuddy. You need to improve at it; they ought to teach a class on that in med school. It will be a very handy skill in your profession."

"That wasn't a lie," she insisted. Technically, the statement was true.

He stepped forward, cocking his head slightly, fixing her with the laser intensity of his eyes. She would swear that the man could see straight through her at times, reading her thoughts as easily as a lab report. "What was the name of the patient you were checking on?" he demanded abruptly.

"It...I'm not supposed to tell you that."

"Now, after all our conversations, you're going to claim HIPAA on me? Never mind. I could probably guess who; I just can't guess how you found the name."

She sighed. He was ahead of her; he always had been and always would be. "Do you remember Dr. Nordstrom?" His expression softened a little, his eyes going distant. "He remembers you. He substituted on rounds in the last part of this week, and he mentioned you. He said to me privately that I reminded him of you - although he did say that you were better. You were a natural; I have to work at it."

"Good old Nordy," he said. His features hardened. "So of course, once you had a name, you looked up the chart. You know you could get fired for that?"

"Yes," she said. She pressed up against the gate, though he was still several feet beyond it on his side. "Maybe I could get you some of those heat patches regularly. I wish I could get you Vicodin somehow, but they keep it secured too carefully. House..."

He flinched. "I told you, my name is Maestro."

"No, you didn't actually. You just said to call you that." She sighed, wondering how to possibly approach the rest of this landmine of a subject.

"Since you haven't asked why I've hidden out over here in pain for ten years, I'll assume you've filled in the rest of the story. I doubt Nordy would have told you that, but with the name, you could find an old story still on the internet. Did you go down to the newspaper archives?"

"Yes," she admitted. "Maestro, you were set up. You got framed."

"Of course," he admitted.

The quick response caught her off guard, and she fumbled for a minute over her reply. "But why not fight it, then?"

He backed up a step, right on the edge of going out of her sight. "Wait!" she implored him. "Maestro, we can dig to the bottom of this. I'll help you."

He shook his head. "Write this down in granite, Cuddy. I don't want your help."

"But you're _innocent_ ," she insisted.

He shook his head. "I didn't murder that jerk of a landlord."

"That's what I said. You're innocent."

"Cuddy, drop it. Don't dig up the past; nothing can be changed that matters anyway." He looked at the sky overhead, apparently gauging the time. "You need to go get ready. You have a date with Dr. Wilson tonight, don't you?"

"How do you know that?" she asked.

"I see and hear things. More than you know. Goodbye, Cuddy."

The word chilled her. "You mean _goodbye_ goodbye? That's it? But I need you on cases. You're teaching me."

He sighed. "I'm teaching you a little too well, apparently. If you have a really good differential, let me know, but regarding my personal life, forget it. I don't want to be exonerated. I just want to be left alone." He vanished into the darkness, leaving her standing there stunned, trying to force that conversation into any kind of sense.

He didn't think he was innocent. He had definitely shaken his head in the negative at that line from her. Yet he admitted that he hadn't committed the murder. What then was he in his eyes guilty of, and how could it possibly be worth this much punishment?

It was a long time before she turned away from the gate, but she knew as she headed for the door that she had no intentions of letting the murder case drop. No, she was going to help him whether he wanted it or not.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: This chapter in the last few weeks was not brought to you by Cancer, Construction, Crazy work, or Continuing toward publication. Okay, those last two were a stretch to get the alliteration, but work has been crazy, and Mom's book has taken a good bit of time working with them on final details. Should be out soon, though, like within a month; we're definitely in the homestretch. Anyway, while all of those have been going on and at least three of them continue (construction is completed!), I finally had time to write up another chapter of Phantom. Appreciate your patience on this one. It will be completed. And yes, there is more in my series, but we're finishing this one first. I definitely don't have time to have two open fanfiction stories. Thanks for reading!

(H/C)

Cuddy drove back to her apartment on autopilot, her mind busily trying to wrap itself around all the new data from today and from her conversation with House.

Odd. She had thought of him as Maestro for so long, and she still did with the medicine. There, he was confident, brilliant, conducting the differentials as Toscanini had conducted opera, all the separate tracks flawlessly managed into the glorious whole in what was nearly a form of medical music. But the lonely, trapped soul she sensed over in that abandoned building, the one she had spoken to tonight, that was House. He stepped into the name easily in her mind.

Would House have been the Maestro publicly by now if not for this charge? She could imagine how much good he would do loose in the world, though the world probably would be annoyed often by his bluntness and eccentricity and impatience.

Hopefully he still could be that brilliant physician. She refused to let this drop, no matter what he said. Whatever he was punishing himself for with his solitary confinement, surely it didn't merit this length of sentence.

But how on earth could she convince him of that? Solving a decade-old murder case when she'd never read more than one or two mysteries sounded far easier than drawing him out of his shell back into civilization.

She barely made it back to her apartment before James Wilson showed up, and he looked surprised at finding her not yet ready for their date. She knew the lapse of efficiency was uncharacteristic. Still, he was pleasantly understanding as always, and he waited in the living room while she finished changing and putting herself together in the bathroom.

"I'm so sorry," she repeated as they left. "I was working on something today and just lost track of time. I have been looking forward to tonight."

"Not a problem," he assured her. He looked over at her at a stop light, taking his eyes off the road for a moment. "May I ask what you were working on? I thought you had today off."

Well, she'd walked straight into that one. She scrambled mentally for a few seconds, and he beat her to the reply. "I'm sorry. You're right; it's none of my business. You don't have to tell me."

She reached over to put a hand on his on the steering wheel. "Thanks, Wil- James. I wish I could tell you, but it's private." He gave her a smile with just a touch of curiosity but accepted the statement.

Once again, it was nearly the perfect date. The meal was wonderful, the conversation excellent, and he also was a wonderful dancer. She had always loved to dance herself, and she even forgot at times all her discoveries of this day. It was very late that night when he brought her back home, and then they shared a bottle of wine together, talking about old times, speculating about new. Before he left, she confirmed that he was as good a kisser as he was a dancer. If he had pushed, she probably would have let him stay, but he was the perfect gentleman tonight, saying that he didn't want the wine making decisions for her. She went to bed and fell asleep quickly.

She woke up on Sunday with her mind pointing back like a compass needle to House and with a new conclusion that had formed while she slept.

He had to have someone else helping him.

She replayed her memories of his lair, taking inventory. The food might be plain, but it wasn't out of date, either. The magazines were current. The Tylenol was full, a nearly new bottle. He had a modern computer and printer/scanner.

The thought of House sneaking out routinely to go shopping with a murder charge hanging over his head simply didn't make sense. There was too much danger that somebody in this town might recognize him. He looked more than 10 years older than that newspaper picture, but anyone who had known him then would still know him on sight now if they took a good look. Besides that, his mobility was bad enough that any trip would have been a chore.

No, someone else, most likely another employee at the hospital, had to be taking him supplies regularly. Now, who might that be? If Dr. Nordstrom remembered him fondly, a few others might. She doubted it was Nordstrom, though. If he had known where House was hiding and had been aiding him, he would hardly have talked about him with her even as much as he had. No, he would have been on perpetual guard against introducing that whole subject.

So who else? There was no way short of breaking and entering that she could possibly access personnel records in the HR computer, but she made a mental note to keep eyes and ears open and start a list of those hospital employees, not just doctors but in any area, who had been here for sufficient years. Maybe she could narrow it down.

Of course, it might not be somebody he had known back before his charge. Maybe there were others like herself whom he couldn't resist introducing himself to over the years of his isolation. Maybe she was simply the latest in a long string.

She didn't think so. She didn't _want_ to think so.

Meanwhile, she had another tactic in mind for today. Recalling the date of the murder from the internet stories, she ran a Google search on it adding House, Lexington, and obituary. Fairly quickly, she found the obituary for Blythe House. Cause of death had been a heart attack. There was a picture provided, and the woman looked to Cuddy's medical eye like a nice candidate for a heart attack. She was overweight with a full face and a not-totally-healthy color. Nice smile, though.

The obit mentioned her hobbies, her friends. The fact that she had a son was stated but not elaborated upon, not even to include his name. Even given the news that had been breaking simultaneously with her death, that surprised Cuddy. The name Cuddy particularly wanted, however, was prominently included: John House, retired USMC. Blythe's qualities as a supportive wife during his career were praised. No subsequent search for an obituary under his name yielded results. Hopefully, he was still alive.

Cuddy switched to personal information databases, growling under her breath at the price some wanted for all details, including jail records. She didn't care about jail records; she simply wanted a current phone number. She had to start somewhere, after all, even though as awkward phone calls went, this one probably would take the prize in her life to date.

Having found the correct (she hoped) John House and his address and phone number, she took a deep breath and dialed.

"Hello." It sounded less like a greeting than like a command. Years of retirement had not diminished his military tone.

"Is this Mr. John House?" she asked.

"This is Major House," he stated, emphasizing the title.

"Major House. This call might seem strange, but I'd like to talk to you for a few minutes." No harm in stroking his ego at first, softening him up. "My name is Lisa Cuddy. I've been doing some research and hoped you might help me. First of all, I do want to thank you for your service to your country."

She could almost hear his chest jut out. "I appreciate that, but I was just doing my duty." He didn't believe that, just thought the sound bite came across better. She was already starting to dislike him in this conversation, even on their short acquaintance, and she stomped the feeling down. She didn't even know him, and personality clashes wouldn't help the conversation any.

"Your military record speaks for itself," she said. She hoped that it did, though all she knew of it was what had been in his wife's obituary. Come to think of it, there had been an amazing amount of military praise of her husband in that, given that his wife should have had the starring role in the piece.

He was lapping this up. "I'm very proud to have been a Marine, and I hope my country is as satisfied with me."

"Oh, I'm sure they are. We owe so much to our veterans. I'm sure I don't fully understand the extent of the sacrifices men like yourself have made, but I do appreciate it."

"Well, it's good to know we aren't forgotten, especially by the younger generations. So many of them don't appreciate what we went through for their sake. So you're doing research on veterans?"

"Not quite." She gathered herself to enter the main subject, realizing he was quite likely to hang up on her unless she established her good intentions up front. "I ran into some old newspaper stories on your son Gregory, and I wondered reading them if anything else had ever been heard from him. I assure you, I'm not a reporter or a police officer, and I'm not trying to capture him or convict him without a trial. I even wondered if there's a chance he might have been framed."

Silence. Absolute silence for several seconds, then the sound of accelerating breathing. "Major House," she said quickly, "I do _not_ mean any ill toward your son. I just wanted..."

His reply sliced across her final word with all the firmness and finality of a "dismissed" from a commanding officer. "I have no son," he practically spat out. In the next second, he hung up on her.

Cuddy sat there still holding the phone, surprised. What was that about? She'd expected him to be protective of House, whether or not he had heard anything further from him since the murder; he was his father, after all. She had never expected that level of venom and directed not at her but at his son even as he denied him.

It was a long time before she remembered to put down the phone.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: Happy Labor Day to those in the US. I'm allegedly working today, but work is out on job #2 because of the holiday making levels low, so I have time finally to write down another chapter of Phantom while fishing for work.

To answer some questions people have asked: Yes, there will be more stories in my series. As for when, the next story will come after I finish Phantom. How long will that be? To quote Fiddler on the Roof, "I'll tell you. I don't know." I do know approximately where we are in this story, but I can't make any estimate at posting schedule, as life is unpredictable, and also, the story somehow always seems longer on the screen than in my head, so my idea of approximate chapters left is probably not even accurate. Many times with the stories, I have thought we had X number of chapters left and was proven wrong, always with more chapters than I thought, not less. It will come when it comes, but it WILL come. Life is also quite crazy lately, with two jobs, about 10 hours a week devoted to my music groups, a farm to keep up, a relative with stage IV cancer, and final details with Mom's book.

Speaking of Mom's book, it went to the printer on Friday, three days ago. The estimate to have my copies in my hands from the publisher is roughly two weeks. I have been told that Amazon and Barnes and Noble update their own websites, which I can understand, so getting the listing live on them may take longer. Or it may not, just depending on my luck in the Amazon/B&N traffic queue of the moment. But it is coming. It will be available both in print and in Kindle/E-book. I've seen the galley proof, in fact read it three times in the last week at the expense of sleep. It looks quite neat with the pictures set and all, and I love the front cover that the art/graphics department came up with.

Enjoy more of Phantom. I hope that things settle down from the crazy pace of the last months, but I make no promises on timetable, just that it will get done.

P.S.: Breaking news. Mom's book has begun to arrive at the Great Big Internet. Info in my profile.

(H/C)

The next week was busy in terms of work with the hospital having a high tide of patients. Cuddy had often wondered why it was that even illnesses that were not contagious seemed to come in cycles, as if dozens of strangers had decided to get, for instance, acute cholecystitis at the same time. There were also a few cases that were much more challenging than cholecystitis, but most of the medicine was simply time consuming, not mysterious.

This, of course, left her mind free to ponder the leading mystery of the moment: House. She did have one differential with the Maestro during that week on their most challenging patient, and he was crisply, purely medical, solving the case but not giving her an inch of anything else. The barbed wire fence was almost audible in his tone. She didn't dare push him further in conversation that time, though she did, on another day, pick up a hot Big Mac again and deliver it with a toss over the fence. It was gone the next time she went up to check.

Food. Who was supplying him with food and other needs? She had started asking a few questions around the hospital, trying to keep them casual, simple curiosity as to who had been there for years and why they thought Princeton was a good place to settle, and her mental list was building. She also had looked up the medical staff - it would be hard to find records on the lower ranks - back from the time of the murder and had started tracing their current whereabouts and status. Work took most of her time, but she chiseled out a few hours late at night with her laptop.

Then there was that abruptly ended conversation with John House. That bothered her more the more she thought about it. His whole attitude had been _wrong_.

It was a Thursday afternoon that the first light bulb moment of the whole situation came, and as they usually are, it was triggered by an unexpected catalyst. A man came into the ER after having collapsed and fortunately having been resuscitated by a few bystanders who knew CPR. No diagnostic question remained after he was hooked up to an EKG, but he also did have some long-term thyroid issues, and Endocrinology was called in on a consult simply to manage his chronic problems. The patient by that point had had a cardiac cath, had gone for emergency CABG, and was in the ICU, not doing well at all.

His wife was practically glued to his bedside, and Cuddy found herself on rounds listening to the wife as much as assessing the patient. The patient carried no mystery and, unfortunately, not much hope. People working in medicine develop a radar, and while a patient will surprise you at times with a sudden up or downturn, there are also ones whom you feel from the beginning aren't going to make it. This man was such a patient. He had simply had too large of an MI and in fact had had a few smaller ones earlier, well before admission, as proven by his EKG, and he hadn't ever mentioned chest pain or seen a cardiologist until that day of admission when he had no chance of denying it. Too much damage, too much delay in seeking treatment, and he wasn't bouncing back well from his surgery. No, they were going to lose this one. None of the staff worked any less diligently on the case, but they all shared the conviction. The hourglass of life for this man was running out.

Marital radar was every bit as acute as medical, and his wife knew, even without the doctors' reports. She seemed to respond to Cuddy, saying that she looked like her husband's sister, who had died about her age, and when Cuddy was there seeing the patient, the woman would open up to her.

"It's my fault," she said repeatedly.

Cuddy tried to fall back on reassurance. "There's nothing you could have done, Mrs. Anderson. This is a physical issue. He'd obviously had obstruction increasing for quite a while in his arteries, and he ignored it. You couldn't have helped that."

She shook her head. "He's been worried about me lately. I had a car wreck a few months ago." Cuddy looked sympathetic; the woman was still using a cane. "The stress with me is probably what pushed him into this."

"Mrs. Anderson, this disease had been developing for much longer than a few months. He was ignoring symptoms well before your accident."

"But stress can trigger a heart attack," the woman insisted. "It's my fault. If he dies, it's like I killed him."

"Mrs. Anderson, think about that for a..." Cuddy slammed to a dead halt verbally as she herself thought about that for a minute.

House. House's mother, dying of a heart attack on the day of the murder. House saying that he didn't kill _the landlord,_ with an odd emphasis in his tone.

Did he think he had killed his mother? Could he blame himself for the stress his infarction had caused her?

Was _that_ what he was punishing himself for by refusing to mount a defense?

If so, that was an even harder problem to solve than she had anticipated. Of course, it was illogical. He knew himself medically that someone with advanced CAD could drop with any trigger or with apparently none, as people died in their sleep of heart attacks all the time. But blame was notoriously illogical.

"Are you all right, dear?" Mrs. Anderson had noticed her freeze.

Cuddy gathered her thoughts and firmly reboxed them. While with a patient or with a patient's family, she should be focused on _them_ , not tormented geniuses hiding out in self-imposed isolation from framed murder charges. "I'm fine, Mrs. Anderson. Please, don't blame yourself. This had been building for a long time, well before your accident. And I'm sure he wouldn't blame you. If he were awake, he'd probably thank you for being a good wife to him and staying here. He knows that you love him. That's what he'd be thinking of. And medically, with his level of disease, he was a heart attack waiting to happen. Anything at all could have set it off. Or nothing. There doesn't have to be an acute stressor. Very many people die of heart attacks while they are peacefully asleep."

Mrs. Anderson listened, but she wasn't entirely convinced. Cuddy left her after a few more minutes of attempted comfort, and her thoughts were racing.

He believed he had killed his mother. That had to be it. That explained everything.

Well, not quite. There was the minor detail of who had committed the murder, but she had at least answered one question, even if the answer only complicated the situation further. How could she deal with this?

Could that explain John House's attitude, too? Could John blame his son for his wife's death?

No, John still felt _wrong_ to her. That might be part of it, but there was something additional there.

Could John have told House that he blamed him? She tried to recreate the scene in her mind. House had attended PT that day, had been as usual. Unquestionably, he hadn't known, either about the murder or about his mother, at that point. He came home and discovered the landlord's body. He went over to check for vitals; there had been a footprint and cane marks in the blood. Then he walked from there to the kitchen sink and washed off, and then he had vanished.

When had he found out about his mother's death? In between discovering the body and washing up, had the phone rung? Had John called his son right then to notify him and then blame him for his mother's death? Hearing that from your father while looking at a murdered man in your living room would be enough to knock anybody over the edge.

Cuddy that night pulled out her growing files and reread Blythe House's obituary, and this time, she fastened onto the fact that Blythe had been survived by a sister. She had been thinking earlier that House's father would obviously be the most likely to have heard anything from his son or to be an ally in this investigation of the murder, but that most obvious answer had struck out. (She could hear the Maestro's voice chastising her for expecting the most obvious answer to be the correct one. "Zebras," he would say. "Never get so focused on horses that when you hear hoofbeats, those are all you think about.")

The internet yielded an address and phone number for Charity Welch. (Really, what had Blythe's - and Charity's - parents been thinking of in naming their children?) Cuddy took a deep breath, but this conversation couldn't possibly go worse than her last one with House's relatives had. She dialed.

"Hello?" This was a pleasant inquiry, not a military demand, unlike John, who had practically answered the phone as if demanding name and rank from the caller.

"Mrs. Welch?"

"Yes. May I help you?"

"I hope so. My name is Lisa Cuddy, and I'm a resident at the hospital in Princeton."

"Yes?" A request for further information, but also a slight tightening of the tone. The hospital in Princeton carried definite associations for her, and Cuddy knew that she was most likely thinking of her nephew now. However, unlike John, she didn't go immediately into anger.

"This might sound strange, but I've been doing some research. Someone mentioned the case ten years ago with your nephew, Greg House."

Charity sighed. "Yes, I thought that must be what you were thinking of when I heard Princeton."

"I assure you, I don't mean any harm to him. I've been reading the details, and things just don't quite seem to add up."

"No, they don't. I've always thought that, but the police seemed so sure he was guilty."

"Have you heard anything from your nephew since his disappearance?" Cuddy asked.

"No, I haven't. Of course, we weren't very close while he was growing up. John was in the military, you know, and he and Blythe moved all around. He - they had trouble having visitors."

Cuddy noted the change in pronoun. "You think John was the leading force in that?"

Charity gave a soft laugh without much humor in it. "My dear, if you had ever met John House, you'd know that he was the leading force in _everything_ in that household."

Even without meeting John face to face, Cuddy could easily believe it. "So you never saw your nephew much?"

"No, I didn't. I sent cards and gifts, of course, but I only met him a few times when he was a child. But Blythe - we would talk on the phone when we could, and since Greg grew up and left home, she would look for chances to call, so we've talked more. Empty nest, you know."

"When you could?" Cuddy asked. "You had to look for chances?"

"Well, she - John always wanted to do things together when he was around. She'd try to find chances when he was out. You understand, don't you?"

"Yes," Cuddy replied. She understood better than she wanted to; the picture forming of Blythe and John's marriage, backed up by her brief conversation with the man, was all too clear. John had been a controller, and Blythe had submitted, only participating in private, minor rebellion when his back was briefly turned.

How had House reacted, growing up with such a father?

Charity was prattling on, a lonely, aging woman who had found an interested ear to fill. "Anyway, Blythe would talk about Greg a lot. His medical career. She was so very proud of him, thought he had the makings of a brilliant doctor. His illness; she was worried about that, of course."

"Of course," Cuddy agreed. "Was John?" She hoped that question wouldn't be off-putting, but nothing about this conversation was quite socially standard, after all.

Charity tightened up just a little, but the disapproval wasn't aimed at Cuddy. "I only have what Blythe said to go on, you understand, but she did say he thought Greg was playing it up for attention." Cuddy, remembering the purely physical pain in House's eyes, recalling that fierce spasm that had almost hurt her own hands in massaging it, clenched her teeth. "She never liked to criticize John much, though. She would make excuses for him. His doubting Greg's illness was almost the worst thing I can ever remember her saying about him."

 _Almost?_ "What else did she object to?" Cuddy asked. It was probably a short list; maybe Charity remembered the other points of disagreement.

"Well, she said he always had been so strict on Greg when he was growing up. Even later. She said he always had too high of expectations and was too critical, and even when Greg was in medical school, John never seemed satisfied with him and didn't let his pride show." Cuddy was coloring in the lines on her mental picture of John, but Charity's next sentence brought her up short as much as Mrs. Anderson's self-accusation had earlier that day. "When Greg was so sick with his leg, she said that John never really had believed him all those times he was injured as a child."

 _All those times?_ "Greg got hurt a lot as a child?"

"Yes, Blythe said he just never really was that coordinated. Always hurting himself somehow."

Cuddy closed her eyes, picturing House - the Maestro - who could be almost graceful even in a limp now, whose hands danced over the keyboard of his piano with sureness and dexterity. _Oh, dear God_. Her picture of John House abruptly crystalized into one far more sinister.

"Why are you wondering about Greg, dearie?" Charity asked.

"One of the attendings mentioned him, someone who knew him back as a student," Cuddy said, perfectly truthfully. "He remembered how brilliant he was medically. He thought it was unfortunate he hadn't gone on to finish his studies, but then he closed up, wouldn't tell what had happened. So I had to research it further."

"Of course," Charity said. "I can understand being curious. I can't stand it myself when somebody only tells half a story."

"And when I read the old reports in the media, it just didn't add up. Something seemed wrong. I'll admit, I have no right or permission to be investigating this, but I just couldn't leave it alone."

"Well, I wish you luck with it," Charity said. "The way Blythe described him, I can't imagine him murdering anybody. Oh, she said he got impatient at times, but don't we all?"

"We sure do. One thing that I noticed in the stories; it said that Blythe died of a heart attack on the day of the murder."

"Yes. They thought that had, what would you say, unbalanced Greg, made him snap in an argument with his landlord."

"Did she have any history of heart trouble?" Cuddy asked, hoping for a ringing affirmative, something that she might point to medically with House. Preferably a very long history, far predating House's infarction.

"Well." Charity drew the word out to multiple syllables. "She'd never gone to a heart doctor. She didn't mention anything in an appointment at all, not even with her doctor. But she had little twinges. She'd tell me about them sometimes, and I wanted her to go. But she could be stubborn, just like my Andrew." There was fondness along with exasperation in the tone.

"He was your husband?" Cuddy automatically assigned the past tense. Yes, Charity was almost certainly a widow, willing to fall into conversation at the drop of a hat and frustrated for lack of listeners now, at least at home.

She hoped that Andrew had appreciated his wife, hadn't just tried to control her like John had his.

"Yes, he was." Charity's voice softened. "He never wanted to admit anything himself. He always worried about me, but he never admitted to anything himself, and when he had a heart attack, the doctor said he probably had been having symptoms earlier."

"I'm sorry for your loss," Cuddy said.

"Oh, dearie, that was years and years ago. But thank you, just the same. I have my friends and my groups, but it does get so _quiet_ around the house now sometimes, you know?"

Cuddy gently nudged the conversation back toward her goal. "So Blythe _was_ having symptoms?"

"Yes, she was."

"For a long time before her son became ill?"

"For a few years."

Cuddy seized that and filed it for future reference. If Blythe had a long - and ignored - preexisting history of CAD, then it would be harder medically for House to blame himself. At least, it _should_ be.

But with her new insight on John, she was now wondering if John had blamed his son that day on the phone, not just in grief and the moment but in calculation and venom.

At that moment, there came a knock on the door of her apartment. "Mrs. Welch, you've been much more than kind, but I'm afraid I'll have to go now. There's somebody at the door."

"Okay, dear. It was nice talking to you. Call me again sometime."

"I will." Cuddy hung up and headed for the door. It was James Wilson. "James! I wasn't expecting you tonight."

"Is that a problem?" he asked. "I was in the neighborhood, and I thought that..."

At that moment, the phone rang. Cuddy jumped, afraid that Charity had called her number back, and Wilson looked at her oddly. "Hadn't you better get that?"

She moved over to the phone and answered, hoping for any innocent, professional conversation. She got her wish. It was another resident at PPTH who had at the last minute had an offer of an unused ticket to a concert for tomorrow night and who thus was looking for someone to cover her late shift. Cuddy was glad to oblige, but the conversation with gratitude included did take a few minutes.

Finally, she hung up and turned around to see Wilson reading the copious printouts of news articles on the case. Well, she had left them sitting out in plain sight while fishing through her growing file for Blythe's obituary. He even would have had to move them to free up a spot on the sofa to sit down. He looked at her, puzzled.

"Why are you studying a murder ten years ago?" he asked.


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: Sorry for the delay. Lots happening. Here's a short bite for you.

Cuddy walked over to the couch to face Wilson. "What are you doing going through my things?" she asked.

He gave her his familiar smile. "Sorry, but it was sitting right there. You can't tell me you wouldn't have looked at a whole stack like that in my place if the roles were reversed."

No, she couldn't. She had to grant him that.

"If you don't want to tell me, all right. But I never thought of you as a detective, and I have known you a while."

Part of her bristled at the description; part of her had to acknowledge the truth of it. She had never been a reader of mystery stories. Too frivolous.

But this wasn't a story, and House was real, as was his sentence to an isolated existence in a chilly, abandoned building unless she could sort this out somehow. Maybe another perspective would add some new ideas. On the other hand, she didn't want to tell Wilson about her encounters on the roof and in his lair with the Maestro. That was too personal, too intimate, even aside from the fact that House was wanted by the police. Murder had no statute of limitations. She knew he was innocent, but the moment his location became public knowledge, he would be hauled in for questioning.

If he was, would he even put up a defense? No, she couldn't let him be arrested.

She sighed. "Were you around when Dr. Nordstrom was filling in recently?"

He shook his head. "I didn't do rounds with him. Saw him in the halls a few times, but we never spoke."

"He mentioned a brilliant old resident he knew, Dr. Greg House. Then he wouldn't say what had happened to him, just shut off. He got my curiosity up the way he cut the story short. So I did a little research."

Wilson looked at the voluminous papers and printouts. "A little research?"

"The man was the most promising resident Dr. Nordstrom had ever seen. He still remembers him ten years later. Think of what good could be done if the charges were cleared. If he were publicly announced to be innocent, maybe he'd come back out of wherever he went to."

"You're assuming that he's innocent," Wilson pointed out. "The newspaper stories seem to say he ran."

"Is guilt the only reason to disappear?"

"It's the main one with timing this coincidental." Wilson sat back. "I'll admit, it's not proven, though. Actually, it does sound like a nice little exercise. I've imagined myself as a detective more than once, and I have read several mysteries. Maybe I could help you. Can you tell me what you've found out so far? I've hardly read all of this."

Cuddy sat down in the chair and launched into her summary. "House's landlord was murdered in his apartment, had his head bashed in. The body was found that afternoon by a UPS man who knocked on the door, and it wasn't quite shut. House had been there; there was a cane mark in the blood puddle and then to the sink, where he apparently washed off."

Wilson looked thoughtful. "Just a cane mark?" he asked.

"Cane mark and footprints going from the body to the sink," Cuddy filled in. "House was using a cane because he was still in rehab from an infarction earlier that year."

"But no other drips or such along the trail? Nothing that might have fallen off his clothes? Just from his shoes and the cane?"

Cuddy was annoyed that she hadn't seen that point. "No."

"Whoever committed the murder probably got blood on more than his shoes given he'd just bashed a man's skull in. If the murderer walked straight to the sink to wash off right after, he would have left other drips along the way, not just foot marks. Maybe House _is_ innocent," Wilson said.

"But what about the true murderer then? Where did he drip?"

"Raincoat and rain boots set aside and then reached over and put on after to cover up?" Wilson suggested. "Or more likely worn during the murder and then removed and put into the convenient trash bag he had in his pocket. Something like that would be how it was done in the movies."

"Not bad," Cuddy had to admit.

"Where was House? Does he have any kind of alibi? I hadn't read that far, just verified at a glance that all these papers were on the same topic and from the same date."

"He had a PT appointment that afternoon, which he went to. Seemed his usual self to the therapist."

"Motive?" Wilson asked. "The stories said there was an argument, but bashing your landlord's brains out over a tenant-management argument is a little extreme. That's another point in House's favor for me."

"As far as I see it, the motive had to be to get him framed. It was in his apartment, after all."

Wilson visibly was getting into this. "Who would benefit from him being out of the way? Other residents? Other tenants? Did he have enemies?"

The trouble was, it sounded like he had rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, and Cuddy had to admit that she could see why. Not that his occasional acerbic personality would excuse murder. "I've been trying to track the other doctors who were here then. Other hospital personnel, too, although that's harder. Also asking a few quiet questions, trying to see who remembers him."

"Good a place as any to start," Wilson said. "What about other tenants?"

"Good point but harder to track."

"Have you considered just going to the police and asking them if they remember the case?" Wilson asked. "Maybe the detective who worked it is still there."

Cuddy deducted a few of the case strategy points she'd been crediting him with. "They wouldn't reveal everything, Wilson. No statute of limitations. It's still an open case for them."

"Who else have you talked to? Relatives might be helpful. Has anybody heard from him?"

"No. I did talk to his father and to an aunt. His father is a piece of work and has disowned him. The aunt was much more friendly, but no, she hasn't heard a word."

"Wonder where he is? He's probably still following the news, unless he retreated to a deserted island somewhere. If we could clear him, he might come back out." Wilson smiled at her. "We can be a detective team, just like in the movies. That might even be romantic."

Cuddy sighed. "This is reality, Wilson," she reminded him. "Not a book. If he's out there, he needs help."

Wilson's smile faded. He was sensitive to people needing help. "Yes, he does. Imagine hiding out for ten years while knowing you were innocent. Okay, how can we help find the real culprit?"


	12. Chapter 12

A/N: Sorry for the delays. RL has been crazy lately. My insane schedule should lighten up in about another month as a few things are adjusted. By the way, Mom's book is now available in Kindle/electronic form as well as print. See my profile for the info. Thanks to those of you who have commented to me privately on it.

Meanwhile, back at PPTH, we are starting to pull threads together out of this mystery.

(H/C)

Cuddy had always heard how the schedule of residency could push a person, but she wondered over the next few weeks how many people had ever tried to combine it with a murder mystery. The pressure was intense. She and Wilson spent every night going over the details, bouncing ideas off of each other. She did wonder why he was suddenly so much into this, but she remembered that he always had, even as a child, liked helping people.

There was also House, the Maestro. She tried her best to visit the rooftop every day if she could, even if just for a few minutes. That at least could be combined with resident duties, though she made plenty of trips without a case, too. He didn't always show up, but she liked to think that he was there watching, even when he was silent. He did participate in several medical differentials. Every time, the sweeping brilliance of his analysis struck her all over again. It was one evening after one of those conversations, when he had successfully solved the hardest case of her time at PPTH so far, one that had stumped even the attendings, one that took him even a few days, that she dared to broach the forbidden subject.

"Maestro," she said, "can you imagine how much _good_ you could do as a practicing doctor?"

He fell silent. A moment ago, he had been alive with satisfaction; he was never in such a good mood as on solving a tough puzzle. Her words burst that mood like a balloon. She almost heard the pop as it died. "There's so much more you could do, so many more cases, if you would come back to this side of the hospital." She hoped he hadn't just disappeared, something he did at times.

He hadn't. After a taut minute of silence, he laughed, a sound with absolutely no humor in it. He was mocking not her but himself. "I can't come back," he said. "And I gave up imagining several years ago. Well, mostly, anyway."

She seized the qualifier on the end. "It can't be comfortable over there. And it isn't good for your health, either. You could have better treatment..." She slammed the brakes on before she made the mistake of mentioning his leg. Unfortunately, he tracked the sentence on to completion.

"I am _fine_ ," he snarled, and she knew that was the last word she would get out of him today. Having already irrevocably annoyed him, she decided that there wasn't much harm in pushing on a little bit. Hopefully he was still listening at least and hadn't stalked off at his fastest limp with that amazingly silent though disabled stride.

"Maestro, I...I had a phone call the other day with your aunt Charity. She said that your mother had been having symptoms for quite a while, even before you got sick. For a few years, even. She didn't mention it, didn't think it really was anything important, but she _was_ showing symptoms. She was probably a walking heart attack waiting to happen. Anything or nothing could have set it off. I'm sure I don't have to tell you how many people die of heart attacks while peacefully asleep."

Nothing, but the nothing was a stiff, listening nothing. She knew she had pushed it as far and maybe beyond her limit for today. She turned away for the door to the staircase. "Thank you, Maestro. You've saved someone's life today."

Two flights down, she turned a corner and nearly ran into Brenda, the head nurse from the clinic. They paused for that "you first" dodging shuffle that people perform in unexpected traffic, and then Cuddy continued her descent, feeling too restless today to switch to the elevators even now that she could. One flight down, she froze.

Brenda. The head nurse from the clinic. What was Brenda doing up here at almost the top of the building? Cuddy almost called out to her, but instead she walked on a little farther, letting her feet on the stairs ring, and kept walking in place when she hit the next landing, slowly getting softer. She then carefully opened the door to the floor and closed it, again making it a little softer, a little more distant, than it should have been from that landing. She then stood, straining her ears listening.

The footsteps above continued, and then there was the sound of the door on the top landing opening and closing, the one not to the roof but to the floor. Cuddy stayed still, barely breathing. Finally, very faintly, she heard movement again, the softest pad of feet up that final staircase to the roof. Then came the click of that door, so controlled and muted that if she hadn't been listening, Cuddy wouldn't have heard it. The moment the door closed, Cuddy whipped around and took the stairs at her best surreptitious speed. Once at the top, she eased the door open just a crack and peered out.

Brenda was over at the fence. "Where are you?" The soft words barely reached Cuddy's ears. Finally, Brenda shrugged, putting down absence to eccentricity, and lightly tossed a small bag she held over the fence. In the next moment, Cuddy pulled the door shut as Brenda turned around. Cuddy backed up against the wall, waiting.

The door opened, and Brenda jumped, staring at her. "I...hello, Cuddy. The roof is a nice place to get some air, isn't it?"

Cuddy faced her. "Drop the act, Brenda. You're the one helping him."

Brenda debated, then squared her shoulders and faced the charge directly. "Is helping someone a crime?"

"No, but aiding and abetting a fugitive is."

Brenda counterattacked. "If you know about him and you haven't been to the police yet yourself, you're as guilty of that crime as I am. And he isn't technically charged with anything yet. He's just wanted for questioning."

Cuddy forced her tone to relax. "Look, Brenda, I think we're on the same side here. We both know he's innocent."

Brenda nodded. "That's for sure."

"How long have you been helping him?"

Brenda looked around. "Let's go out to my car. I don't like standing around the hospital discussing this, even in an empty stairwell, and if we went back out on the roof, we...might not be alone. Even though he seems to be in one of his moods tonight."

"That's my fault, I'm afraid," Cuddy admitted. "He can be so stubborn at times."

Brenda smiled, and in that smile, the two of them bonded. "He sure can. Even more than most men."

They met fifteen minutes later in the parking garage, Cuddy having stopped by to inform the attending of the Maestro's solution on the case. His enthusiasm made her feel guilty for taking the credit, but she could hardly tell the truth. With new treatment ordered, she went on down to the garage, and Brenda was waiting.

Once the doors were shut and they were in undisputed solitude, Brenda launched into the tale. "I've worked here for 14 years. When House first came on as a resident, most of the staff didn't like him. I'm sure you can guess why." Cuddy nodded, smiling. "He's definitely a personality. I'll admit, he drove me nuts. The residents had to put in clinic duty, too. He hated it. Watching him clear out a clinic full of people with emergency sniffles was fun in a way, though. But when someone really had a problem - the man was so good, Cuddy. He was brilliant. He was already a better doctor, even as a resident, than the attendings were."

Brenda sighed. "Then he got sick. He was mad at himself, I think, for missing the infarction. It went undiagnosed for three days, and the staff here made plenty of errors, but I think he was most upset with himself."

"He had to be in such pain he couldn't think straight," Cuddy said.

"Yes, but try telling him that. He really did nearly die. They wanted to amputate, and he refused. I'm trusting you here, Cuddy. This is violating HIPAA."

"I've already violated it myself," Cuddy admitted. "I read his chart the other day."

"Then you know that much. Stacy, his girlfriend, voted for a middle-of-the-road debridement while he was unconscious. He never forgave her for it. He can hold a grudge better than anyone I've ever met."

"Including on himself," Cuddy added.

"Definitely. So during rehab, he couldn't work. Really physically didn't have the strength to. But that just drove him crazy and made him more depressed. I'd visit him once in a while, and I'd mention cases. Just to give him something besides the pain to think about. He would usually be ruthless to me, saying he didn't need pity visits, but still, it was a distraction. He appreciated it, even if he couldn't admit that." Brenda was in full flight now. Obviously, this story had been pent up behind a dam for so long that the telling was a release.

"Then came the day of the murder. I actually talked to him that day earlier. He had just left rehab and was heading home, and we bumped into each other in the elevator. No one else in there at that moment, and we talked for a few floors. Cuddy, if that man had committed a murder earlier that day, I don't know anything at all about people. He was absolutely himself - well, his post infarction self. He went on home, and then he found the body."

"When I got off that evening, I went to my apartment. The police had already come late that afternoon looking for him, but he wasn't at the hospital. When I got home, there he was. He had picked the lock somehow, and he was on my couch. He wanted to borrow whatever money I could give him." Brenda shook her head, remembering that scene. "He even knew where my emergency stash was, in fact had already found and counted it, but he waited there to _ask_ me to borrow it. Didn't just take it. He said I was one of the few people he could think of that might help him out. I told him he was innocent, and he said no, he wasn't. Then I said I couldn't see him killing his landlord, and he said he hadn't."

"He blames himself for his mother's death," Cuddy put in.

"I've worked that out, but it took me a little while. Anyway, he was going to run, only he said _limp_ , of course. He needed some funds. I didn't have much, but I would have given him that. But obviously, the whole plan was absurd. How far would he have gotten? And remember, he was a lot weaker then. He's actually much more mobile now than he was that day. He has been working on things. Unfortunately, the disability is permanent, and the pain is barely treated, but he really has made progress. That day, he wouldn't have made it out of Princeton."

"It was my idea to break into the old wing. I was actually hoping that the case would get solved, that things would settle down and it would be temporary. But I took him back to PPTH in my car that night, and we got over there. He is wonderful at picking locks. Found Dr. Carter's office and set him up. Since then, I supply him with food and with reading material. Managed to get the piano over there once years ago - that was Christmas Day at around 1:00 a.m. And then got him tuning tools because it keeps going out of tune. It's chilly over there."

Brenda sighed, finally starting to run down. "I have tried and tried to convince him to fight that charge. He absolutely refuses. All I can do is make him a little more comfortable, and he won't accept much even on that."

"I'm trying to solve that case," Cuddy admitted.

"I wish you luck on it. How did you get to know him, by the way?" Cuddy recounted the last several months, and Brenda was smiling by the end. "That's very unusual for him. He doesn't just randomly have differentials with people over the years. He follows hospital gossip, and I feed him notes on some of the more interesting cases, but I don't actually dig into them with him. I have helped him with placing a few camera eyes, too, so he can watch the hospital, but there aren't many of them, and he changes them up regularly. Doesn't want to risk anybody noticing, although they are well hidden. To my knowledge, nobody else knows he's over there. Not even Dr. Nordstrom, and House was his favorite. But Old Nordy would have trouble keeping a secret. He would spill the story unintentionally if he knew all of it."

Cuddy could well imagine that, having seen how Nordstrom got into talking about House in his residency before he recalled the full story and slammed the brakes on.

Brenda looked at her watch. "I'm sorry, Cuddy, but I have to get on home. I have something I'm going to tonight. But I'm glad we bumped into each other."

"So am I. I had something to do tonight, too." More case review with Wilson. Cuddy looked at her own watch and stared at it in disbelief. Wilson would wonder where she was, and she'd have to cook up some excuse. "I'm not going to turn him in. But I wish we could help him more."

"Hopefully we can."

"One thing. Could you make up a list of everybody you remember back at the hospital at the time of the murder who especially disliked House?"

"Sure." Brenda reached over, and they shook hands solemnly, sealing a pact. Then Cuddy opened the car door and got out. Deep in thought, she walked to her own car.


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: Sorry this one is going so slowly. I've had a few people ask if I mean to finish it, which I definitely will. I just have an insane schedule - two jobs, music activities, farm, Dad still fighting stage IV cancer, things related to my book on Mom's illness, plus the bonus push on a deadline at the moment of having to get my old house completely cleaned out and demolished by the end of the year. If it's still here 1/1, extra taxes for two houses due to the new house I put in this year. Love the new house, but the old one is being a pain at the moment. I'm not only sorting the last of everything out of it but finding homes for the furniture I didn't want - again, all must be done and it razed by 1/1. Will be glad to have it gone.

But nothing's wrong with the writing or with the stories in my series to come after this. They are mentally on file and aren't going anywhere. I'm definitely not going to start the next series story before finishing this one, though. Hard enough finding time to update one, much less two.

Things will start rolling faster in the plot from this current twist, though. We're probably 3/4 through.

Enjoy!

(H/C)

Brenda proved an excellent ally. She promptly produced a list of people who seemed to hold a grudge against House, and she also added her own observations on those. Like most nurses, she had an excellent eye for what went on in her hospital and could describe personalities very well. She and Cuddy spent a few lunches out together going over things, and Cuddy also typed up her own list - names only, Brenda's too-inside information omitted - and took that one to the sessions she had nearly every evening with Wilson. She passed that list off only as the result of asking longer-term employees around the hospital who had disliked House. No harm in letting Wilson help her track the current whereabouts of these people.

Very few of them were still at PPTH. Those remaining were the easiest to check up on. Cuddy even took to watching them surreptitiously every chance she got, and as hard as she tried, none of them looked like a murderer to her.

"But what does a murderer look like?" Wilson asked one evening. He was, as usual, on the couch next to her, a little closer than was casual, going through computer search results that evening. She appreciated his diligent help but still wondered what was in this for him. She hoped he wasn't getting the wrong idea.

"I don't know," Cuddy sighed. "Damn it, I wish it was that easy. That we could just look at somebody, and an alarm goes off. But we can't see under the surface of people."

Unlike House. The Maestro had such a knack, even long distance, for zeroing in on what mattered in a patient. If she could only get him to care, get him fired up to actually work on this case himself, she was sure that he would be a better detective than Wilson, Brenda, and herself rolled into one.

"Lisa?" She jumped. Wilson was looking puzzled.

"Sorry. I was thinking."

"Kind of noticed that." He put the papers aside temporarily. "Lisa, what is it that makes this case so important to you?"

"It's unsolved," she replied.

He shook his head. "There's more. Wouldn't you like to tell me?"

His warm eyes, his inviting tone, were hard to resist. She made herself look away. "It's just the thought of him hiding out there somewhere if he's innocent. Plus how much good he could do as a doctor if he weren't hiding. Even people who hated him admitted that House was brilliant at medicine."

Wilson reached out and put a hand on her arm. "I wish you'd tell me what's really going on," he said. She remained stiffly silent. After a minute, he backed off a token inch. "Okay, then. We'd better get back to tracking suspects. Of course, it could be somebody not even on this list."

"I know." She knew that all too well. "But we've got to start somewhere."

"Okay." Wilson pulled her list - Brenda's revised list - back out and put it on top. "Anderson, Matthews, and Zwigert are still at the hospital. Haven't killed anybody that we know of in the last ten years. Respected practitioners. Branson is in California at UCLA. Rudzinski is in Atlanta. Morrison and Nguyen. . ."

Ah yes, their two lost sheep from the bunch. "You haven't found anything so far, either?"

"Not since four and five years ago respectively."

At that moment, the phone rang. Cuddy answered, and it was House's Aunt Charity. "Hello, my dear. I just thought of something the other day about Greg, and you seemed so interested in him. Did you ever find out anything further about that crime?"

"I..." She looked at Wilson, sitting there apparently ignoring her but obviously all ears. "Excuse me a minute, Charity. James, I'm sorry, but this is private. Could you please excuse me?"

He looked at his watch. "I was hoping after we worked on this a while, we could..." He gave in at her expression. "All right. See you tomorrow, Lisa." He stood reluctantly and left.

Cuddy relaxed a little. "Thank you for waiting, Charity."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to disrupt your evening with a young gentleman. Is he kind? That's the most important thing, you know. They have to have a good heart underneath it all."

"Yes, he's got a good heart. Now what were you going to tell me about House?"

"It was something I got to thinking going over that case again. You know Blythe died earlier that day; you were asking me if she'd had symptoms. I wonder if Greg blames himself for that. The stress from his illness, I mean, and how it impacted her. That might explain why he ran, and it wasn't because of the murder after all."

Cuddy stifled her sigh. This woman meant well, but Cuddy, Brenda, and even Wilson were already several steps ahead of her down that road. If Blythe had been anything like her sister, no wonder John House had been the driving force behind everything in the family. House had to get his intelligence from _somewhere,_ after all, even if John had applied his in a twisted form.

She made herself sound grateful. "That's a wonderful idea, Charity. It would help explain things. I'd even wondered that myself."

"Well, I won't keep you from your young gentleman. Maybe you can catch him before he gets home and tell him to come back. I didn't mean to impose, dear. If you find one with a good heart, that's _so_ important. They're worth putting some time into."

"Yes, I know. Thank you, Charity." Cuddy hung up and let herself sigh aloud as she looked at the stack of papers. Morrison and Nguyen, the two lost from PPTH. Where were they? Of course, it could be anyone else, or someone not on the list at all, as Wilson had said.

Wilson. Maybe she was too focused on this and should be more in pursuit of the activities that Charity obviously thought she was. Wilson would definitely be willing. But the Maestro, House... The man haunted her dreams at this point. She couldn't just walk away from this.

How could she possibly make him care, stir him to action? If only he would join the fight, she had no doubt that they would win.

With another sigh, she gathered her car keys. She hadn't meant to go back out tonight, but she found herself driving back to PPTH, picking up a Big Mac at McDonald's on the way.

It was growing late; third shift had just come on. Cuddy went up to the roof and crossed to the fence. "Maestro. _Maestro_. I brought you something."

Nothing but silence. Even the shadows were still tonight. After a minute, she tossed the bag lightly across, then turned away. He probably wasn't even here; it was much later than usual for a visit from her. She had wasted her money, and he would find a cold Big Mac in the morning, assuming that birds or mice hadn't found it before that.

She was almost to the door to the stairwell when it opened, and Wilson stepped out. She jumped. "James! You startled me. What are you doing here?"

"I might ask you the same question. What are you doing up here? I thought you had an important phone call."

"I did." She was scrambling. "I just decided to take a drive after that."

"To the roof of the hospital?"

She fired a challenge back at him. "You're here yourself."

"I came by to check on a patient after you kicked me out. Thought I might as well do something useful. I was just leaving when I spotted you across the lobby heading in. I called you, but you didn't hear me. Why would you come up to the roof?"

She was edging toward the door. "It's a good place to think. Let's go out for a late snack or something. Or what was it you said you had in mind for later?"

He looked around. "Actually, this isn't a bad setting. Peace, quiet, solitude, stars overhead. Nobody around but us."

She took another half step, but he didn't move. Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small black box. Dropping to one knee, he opened it. "Lisa, I've never known a woman like you. Never. Let's spend a love, a lifetime together, not just chasing some mental exercise but being with each other. Anywhere you go, I want to go. I think part of me knew even as a little boy that we were meant to be together. Will you marry me?"

Cuddy stared at him, absolutely stunned. Neither of them saw the abrupt shift in the shadows beyond the fence as one set of eyes opened even wider than hers, and a breath caught with a sharp hiss that was concealed by her own gasp.

Wilson looked up at her, waiting.


	14. Chapter 14

A/N: Sorry it's been so long. Life is crazy. Dad's cancer battle continues, and some extra time and attention went to him this Christmas. It might be his last one, though I hope not. Several other balls are also being juggled. Overall, aside from cancer, things are good, just busy. I hope you all had a good holiday season.

As you might recall from the last chapter, Wilson had just asked a question. Now for a short but critical chapter in this story.

(H/C)

Cuddy stood there motionless, her voice as frozen in surprise as the rest of her. Wilson waited, looking up at her, his warm chocolate eyes full of anticipation.

"I -" She managed to make some sound at last. Wilson, having expected the possibility of one of two words, neither of which started with I, wilted a little. "I can't, James. Not yet, anyway. Maybe someday, but just not yet."

He scrambled to his feet. "What do you mean? Don't you remember the promise we made to each other once back then?"

"We were _kids_ ," Cuddy responded. "We didn't even know what love was; we were too young."

"But we're not young now." He gripped her arm. "Meeting each other again all these years later - it's like destiny, Lisa. This was meant to be." He tried to move in closer, and she backed up a step.

"James, we've only known each other as adults for a few months. I'm not saying no necessarily. I'm just saying this is too fast. We need to learn more about each other now, get to know the people we've become. Marriage is too big to rush into if you want it to be a success."

He let her widen the distance, beginning to believe that for tonight, at least, he really had no chance. "You're sounding like your father," he told her.

She flinched but held firm. "Dad was right. There's nothing wrong with trying to make all areas of your life a success."

"But what about adventure?" he countered. "What about the unexpected? Have you ever once allowed yourself to do something based on feeling, to seize a moment without considering it logically from all sides for a few days first?"

Abruptly, her mind retreated to that memorable evening that had started on this same roof when House - the Maestro - had first openly revealed himself to her, had called her to him. And she had gone with him, had crossed the forbidden fence, had even let herself be blindfolded. She had walked, unseeing, into the unknown. That one evening in her life, at least, yes, she had felt adventure and excitement.

Wilson apparently realized that her thoughts had abandoned him and that the softening of her features belonged to another. "There's someone else, isn't there?" he asked.

Cuddy started to deny it, then pulled herself up on the edge of the words. She didn't have to explain or defend herself to Wilson, nor trot out for his inspection a list of all her acquaintances, especially the tortured genius who thankfully wasn't up here tonight with them. "I said not now, James. That answer isn't going to change, not for quite a while, maybe never. We'll see when we have more time to know each other."

He finally accepted it, at least for the moment. "Okay, if that's what you need. Don't blame me if I keep trying, but you're worth waiting for, Lisa." He picked up her hand, raised it to his lips to kiss it dramatically, then dropped it and turned away. "I'll see you tomorrow around the hospital. Good night." He turned and walked to the stairwell door.

Once the catch on the door had clicked behind him, Cuddy let out a long sigh. "Now what?" she asked herself. What would her father, the successful businessman, the successful everything, make of this situation?

What would her father make of her going with the Maestro that night? Or of her violating HIPAA? Or of her conspiring with a nurse at the hospital to help hide a fugitive from the law?

What did she care what her father would think about it? She had her reasons; she didn't need his approval in everything. That novel, tentative thought startled her as much as Wilson's question had. She squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. Walking to the wall, she looked out over the city, watching the points of light defying the overarching darkness. "I know what I'm doing, Dad," she finally said aloud. "This is my life. It's not yours, not any longer. I have the right to live it for myself." A little afraid at her daring, she looked around as if her father might appear on the spot to impose his efficient authority once again, but there was nothing, not a movement, not a rustle. She was alone. With a final look out at the city, she turned for the stairwell herself.

Once the catch on the door had clicked behind her, there came a long sigh from the depths of the shadow beyond the fence. The Maestro - House - moved forward and stood at the gate, looking through the bars, the intensity in his eyes burning a hole in the darkness.


	15. Chapter 15

A/N: Just a quick non update. In addition to all other sorts of RL stuff already going on, we have had a murder of a family member and are in the middle of dealing with that. The story will be completed, but there are other things taking precedence for a while. This stuff is a lot more fun to write than to live.


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: Thanks for the well wishes. There has been an arrest made for the murder, the real-life murder in my family, I mean, and there isn't much question (he admits being there with a gun and firing it), but the killer turns out to be a long-time friend of the man he killed. The why question is the main one unanswered at the moment, not who. But earthly justice will be done, at least, in due time. Of course, now things prepare for trial.

Meanwhile back at the version of PPTH in this story, here's a chapter you all have been waiting for.

(H/C)

House stood at the gate as long as he was physically able, and then, cursing the weakness, he levered himself down to the ground. The bars of the fence were at eye level now, and he looked through his prison. The roof was empty on the other side.

A storm of memories was gathering, dark clouds that he could almost see hanging over his head, with her words to her father a lightning flash that repeated intermittently, casting a brief glimpse of light over the scene. "This is my life. It's not yours, not any longer. I have the right to live it for myself."

There were also other words that joined them periodically. Wilson's words. "There's someone else, isn't there?"

She hadn't denied it.

 _She hadn't denied it._

House looked down at his hands, the hands that had blindfolded her, the hands that had played Cuddy's Serenade. Then he looked past them to his leg, stretched out straight on the ground and throbbing in protest. He touched his leg, feeling the ugly crater, feeling all that was missing. Was there possibly a chance?

Whether there was or not for him, he didn't trust Wilson. The man was too slick, too manipulative. By means of the assorted mini cameras he had stationed around PPTH with Brenda's help, House had seen him in several conversations with women by now, not just Cuddy, and it was obvious that Wilson not only knew exactly what to say to a woman and how to say it, he prided himself on that fact. Wilson actually seemed like a promising young doctor and a good friend to the other residents. He had several times helped one of them with something, but House knew for a certainty at this point that women were his weakness and that he was theirs. Thank God Cuddy had had the sense to put him off, but it wasn't the firm dismissal, the "friends and that's it, period" that House would have liked. For her own sake, he thought she needed more information on Wilson.

But was there a chance with _him_? And if so, why on earth would there be? Why would Cuddy, with her looks, intelligence, drive, and ambition, even look twice at him? He was a crippled fugitive wanted for murder, and even though he had dared more with her than with anyone else in the last ten years, he had always known that it was hopeless. He had simply been allowing himself to dream for once. Hearing from her lips no less the suggestion that it might not be hopeless staggered him.

And then overhearing the words to her father. They flashed again through House's mind. "This is my life. It's not yours, not any longer. I have the right to live it for myself."

The other voice was rumbling like thunder, growing ever closer and louder in his mind. The voice he knew best. The words that he still dreamed about, even after ten years. "It was your fault."

House shivered, more from memory than from cold. It seemed eons ago and yet only yesterday that he had stood there in the apartment with his cell phone to his ear, hearing his father. "It was your fault."

He had known something was wrong from the time he got back from PT. Reaching out to unlock his door, he found it unlocked already. He had opened it carefully and stared at the mayhem within.

The landlord lay on his side, his head bashed in, a pool of blood beneath him. House had limped forward and fought for balance as he bent to verify medically what he already knew. Yes, the man was dead. He had made his last visit ever up here to complain about the music and the pacing. But who had found him here? Met him here? By chance or by appointment, and if by appointment, who had made it in this apartment, the landlord or the killer? Part of House's ever-active mind was already galloping off on the case, running the differential, even while another part was in shock. He had seen death, of course. All doctors were far too well acquainted with that grim visitor making an unwanted consult on their cases. But he had never seen cold-blooded murder. Not even his father had gone that far.

As if the man were summoned by the thought, the cell phone rang at that point, and House heard his voice answer the call automatically, as if at a distance. "Hello?"

"She's dead," his father said. House changed contexts so quickly he gave himself a headache doing it.

"Mom?" He knew but grasped at that tiniest final straw that he was wrong.

"Yes. You finally did it, Greg. You finally killed her. All the worry, everything you've put her through for years. This last few months especially. She was talking to me - we were even talking about you at the time, about your leg - and she suddenly clutched her chest and fell over."

"Didn't you even try to help her? CPR? Paramedics?" House stared at the blood, the puddle that his feet and cane were actually standing in the edge of. This man's heart had pumped on long after consciousness left. CPR wouldn't have helped him, but it might well have helped House's mother.

"Of course I tried," his father retorted. "But it wasn't any use. I couldn't revive her. Maybe if you had been here - or maybe not. Doubt you could have done much, crippled like you are. When the paramedics got here, they said she was already gone. It was your fault, Greg. You've been nothing but stress to her all of your life, and then you had to get sick on top of that. You finally killed her. It was your fault."

House wasn't even aware of hanging up the call, though he worked out later that he must have. He must have washed off the blood from his shoes and cane, too, because when his mind began to function again, he was a few streets over, and there was no blood on him.

None of the landlord's blood, at least.

So he had gone to Brenda's apartment to ask for money to run - to limp - away, and she had convinced him to hide over here in the old building at the hospital until an arrest was made. Only an arrest had never been made, and little by little, this world became the reality, so much so that he wondered if that former life of medical residency, of plans for a career, had been a dream.

Ten years. For ten years, he had lived alone with his father's voice for company. He had been forced to accept some help from Brenda, of course, and he had also with her help set up the camera eyes so that he could people watch and even mentally practice medicine, trying to keep himself distracted as well as satisfy his insatiable appetite for learning. But at night, there was always the voice. "It was your fault."

Now for the first time, he heard a tumultuous trio mentally, not just one voice. Along with his father's, "It was your fault," was Wilson asking, "There's someone else, isn't there?", and above all, Cuddy's declaration of independence from whatever lay in her own past. "This is my life. It's not yours, not any longer. I have the right to live it for myself."

House sat there for hours looking through the bars. Finally, with dawn not yet visible but stirring beyond the horizon and preparing to awake, he used the fence to haul himself up to his protesting legs. He had some important research to do.


	17. Chapter 17

A/N: Sorry for the delay. Yes, this story will be finished. Yes, there are more in my series, too. I'm not starting them until finishing this one, though. Certainly don't have time to have two in the process of posting. Life is simply crazy, and that applies seven days a week at the moment. I'll get it posted as I can.

By the way, I made a mistake back in Verdict. I greatly simplified the process and shortened the time frame on the journey to trial. Eight months between event and formal trial was amazing, blazing speed, apparently, and never would occur. With the murder case involving my relative this year, we've already had four various types of hearings, another one coming up soon, and the prosecutor says that it takes about two years to get to full trial, at least with first-degree murder charges. I'm not sure if lesser things go faster, but the justice system in general moves ponderously. If you're ever writing a murder trial, at least double your original estimate of the time involved from crime to verdict for realism.

Anyway, here is another chapter of Phantom, and we actually are getting very close to done with this story. More as I can. Thanks for the reviews.

(H/C)

Brenda arrived early as usual to prepare to open up the clinic. The residents assigned would come in a little later, but the nurses, as usual, handled more of the hard details, and in this case, the clinic was most definitely her baby. She was proud of running it efficiently or at least as efficiently as things could be with people involved.

Today's efficiency score took an immediate hit as she skidded to a dead stop right after unlocking the clinic office, her planned agenda blasted clear out of her mind. Gregory House sat at her desk, focused on the computer with the utter burning intensity that had marked him as a resident. He didn't even hear her come in.

Brenda with an effort closed her mouth and attempted to find her voice. She couldn't believe it. He had hated the clinic back when he had to work here, and in the ten years since the murder, he had never made any effort to leave his self-imposed prison. She had tried over and over to interest him in fighting the charge, then in something else, anything else. Now here he was abruptly doing computer work in her small office.

Her voice, as shocked as the rest of her, finally creaked back into life. "House. House! HOUSE!" He jumped on the third repetition and looked over at her. She received her second jolt of the morning added to the surprise of his presence. She had seen his eyes in many moods over the last ten years on her supply runs: Pained, depressed, resigned, hopeless. Now all at once, they were again sharp and focused. He was on a trail and running it down, his mind not only in high gear again but his body going along with it. My God, she thought, he's alive again. He actually _cares_ about something again. She had no idea what the catalyst was, but she was grateful. "What are you doing here?" she asked.

"Working," he replied, as if the answer was obvious. "Needed a more powerful computer and better speed than my little laptop."

"What are you working on?" she asked tentatively. "Are you trying to solve the murder case?"

He flinched at the mention of the normally forbidden topic, but he didn't waver. "No. Working on something else."

"Something else?" What could be more important than proving his innocence? She applauded his decision to finally leave hiding, but having taken that step, he had better start promptly proving his innocence before he was recognized and captured. "You realize that people are going to be arriving soon to start work. Somebody besides me is going to see you."

He looked at the clock, startled. "Hadn't realized it was that late."

She sighed. "I'm glad to see you over here. Really. But you _have_ to do something to fight this thing, or you're likely to be arrested. There are still some people around who remember you, and even the ones who don't would notice a stranger in the clinic office using the computer. They would talk. Word would get around."

"I need to finish this up first," he replied, his eyes zeroing back in on the screen. "Got to get all the data involved. You need to change your password, by the way. That one was way too easy."

She sighed again. "House, you're going to have to move. You can't be here when the clinic opens. It's too obvious." She thought quickly. "Dr. Randall is on vacation this week. He's the head of gastroenterology, and he's got all the latest electronic equipment. Maybe you could use his office today, but you've got to get down to your problem pretty quickly."

He looked at the clock again, then reluctantly pushed the chair back. "You're probably right. Too many distractions here when the clinic opens, anyway. I can't research effectively with a cacophony of idiots in the background."

Brenda had to grin at the description. "Come on. Let's get you set up before the rest of first shift gets here."

House stood up, then winced, grasping his thigh with one hand and the back of the chair with the other as he gasped. Brenda knew better than to make any move to help or any comment. Finally, his frantic fingers clawed the spasm out. He took a careful test step with his cane, and she led the way, trying to move as quickly as possible but not too quickly.

By the time they reached Dr. Randall's office, House was sweating with the effort. "Here we are," she said. "Door's locked, but I doubt that will bother you."

"No more than your password did," House replied. "If you know his password, don't tell me. I'll just count it as a warm-up exercise."

Brenda rolled her eyes. "Just be discreet as you're working. Remember not to let people see you. Keep the blinds drawn, and Dr. Randall has a private bathroom. I'll be back in a few minutes with breakfast."

By the time she returned, the door was unlocked, though the blinds were drawn. House was nose deep in the computer already. She set the tray from the cafeteria on the desk and spoke loudly enough to penetrate his research fog. "Eat this now, and you'll get a hot meal for once. And lock the door behind me. Here's a bottle of Tylenol and a heating pad." He grunted some vague response, and she quietly withdrew.

Once back down in the clinic office, she looked at the computer screen, but he had cleared it when he stood up. What was he doing? Whatever the current research question was, it apparently had brought him back to life, and while she was worried about the police, she still couldn't suppress her smile.

(H/C)

Cuddy spent the day with residential duties, but that evening, once she had a chance to go to the roof, there was no response. She was tired and a bit cranky; she had tossed and turned instead of sleeping most of last night, torn between thoughts about Wilson's surprise proposal and about her father and about House, the Maestro. Who apparently was MIA tonight, as he had been last night. She really had wanted to talk to him, even if not about anything more than a case, just to hear his voice and feel his presence tonight, even if with a fence between them.

"Cuddy." The voice at her shoulder seemed an extension of her thoughts, and it took her a moment to remember that she had already left the roof and was heading out through the lower halls of PPTH. She jumped in delayed reaction, startled not by him but by encountering him _here_.

"Maestro. What are you doing here?" She turned to face him. There he was, right in the hall, in _her_ world for once. "Someone might see you!" Despite the caution, she was smiling broadly. He was here. He was _here_.

"Doesn't matter. I had to talk to you. I've got some information you need." He pulled her into a small waiting room for families, empty at the moment, with a few vending machines.

"What information that I need?" A bit suspicious, Cuddy still followed him willingly. "And what do you mean, it doesn't matter if people see you. Do you _want_ to get yourself arrested?"

He took a deep breath, and his answer was a few moments in coming, but it was firm enough when it arrived. "No."

She gripped him by both arms, enjoying the chance to do so. He was real. He was here. And somehow, she knew from his expression that he really was with her this time, that he had found something to fight for. "We can solve that case. I know it. Especially with you working with us."

"Us?" His lightning-quick mind grasped the word. "You told Wilson about me?"

"Not exactly." He was progressively if subtly shifting his weight off his right leg, and she sat down on a couch and patted the cushion next to her. After a brief hesitation, he joined her. "He doesn't know about you now, where you are, that I talk to you. None of that. He only knows about the case because he read my notes and copies of news stories one night while I was on the phone. I hadn't expected him; they were left out, and then the phone rang right then. It was an accident, really, Maestro. But he has been helping me try to work on this case."

"I'm sure he's a lot of help. Bet I could guess his real motive, too." House's tone was bitter, but then it changed to urgency, and that new intensity, the intensity she had previously seen only on a tough case, was still in his eyes. "Cuddy, you need to know a few things about him that I don't think you do."

It was her turn to retreat a little. "What do you mean? I do know him. He was a childhood friend."

"And how many years ago was that? Oh, I'm not saying he's a bad person. In fact, he seems like a great guy in many ways. I'm sure he is a good friend to a lot of people. But he has a huge weak point, and that weak point is spelled w-o-m-e-n. I heard him last night."

She jumped. "You were there?"

"Yes. And today, I borrowed Brenda's office and then Dr. Randall's to do a little research."

She shook her head. "You are going to get yourself caught. You've got bigger problems than James Wilson, and you need to focus on them, especially if you're going to reenter the world."

"All in due time, Cuddy. There was something more important first."

"What? James Wilson? You think investigating him is more important than your problems?"

"No. But you are." She stared at him, first feeling out and then leaning against the sincerity in that reply. "I don't want you to get hurt, Cuddy. I've watched him around the hospital from my camera eyes. I knew he was good with women - that's plural, by the way. Most definitely plural. More than that, he knows that he comes across well with women, and he's proud of it. So I checked out his background today. Do you know that he has three prior wives?"

The number jumped out of his words at her. Three. Although she hadn't known about even one. "No," she admitted. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. The divorces are legal records. Look them up yourself. I'll give you the locations and dates if you want. He's still young, Cuddy. Still young, and he's up to three. That's way beyond just incompatibility. That's a character flaw. He's charming, I'll admit, but he's apparently unable to make a long-term commitment and keep it. He proposed to you without telling you you'd be fourth in a line, too."

She shook her head. "How could he - I had no idea."

"I'm sorry, Cuddy. But you needed to know."

"Did you know before today?" she asked.

"No. I knew from watching him that was his weak point. I suspected he had been around the track several times, whether formally or not. But it wasn't worth really digging into until today."

"There you are. I've been looking all over for you." Both of them jumped and looked up. Wilson stood in the doorway of the waiting room, and a second later, he jumped himself as he took in her companion. "Gregory House."

House raised his head bravely. He was trapped more than physically in this little room. If Wilson wished to call the police, there was no way to prevent it, and he knew it. "James Wilson," he returned steadily.

Wilson turned to Cuddy. "You - it's _him_? I thought there might be somebody else you were seeing now and then, but all this time, you've been aiding and abetting a criminal?"

"I'm just a person of interest officially. I haven't had a day in court," House pointed out. "Which is more than I can say for you."

Cuddy stepped firmly into the conversation. "James, he's innocent. You know it. We've looked at that case enough by this point to find holes in it."

Wilson still looked shocked. "So where has he been for 10 years? In the hospital all along? Who all knows about this?"

"That doesn't matter," she said. "James, is it true that you have three prior wives?"

He flinched, but then held firm. "Yes."

"And you never told me?"

"I would have," he insisted. "Really. That's the truth, Lisa."

"When? After we were married?"

He looked at his shoes guiltily. "I was afraid if you knew before you'd turn me down. I just hadn't found the right one yet, Lisa. But I have now."

"Don't pull that line on me. You didn't just find the wrong one _three times_. I'll ask you, although I'm sure he knows, so don't lie to me. What were the grounds for divorce each time?"

Wilson's shoes became even more interesting. "Unfaithfulness. It wasn't always just on my part, though."

"Not always? As in you broke your vows every time, but they did once or twice?" She sighed. "I can't be a number in a line, James. I'm sorry."

"I am, too. I really do think it could be different next time." That had the ring of truth, and looking at him, she realized that he really did believe that.

"I hope it is. But that will depend a whole lot on you, not just on your choice of number four. And whoever number four is, it won't be me."

Anger started to push in alongside the guilt that still remained as Wilson answered. "So you're getting together with him, then? Someone wanted for murder? I at least never killed anybody. In fact, I ought to call the cops right now." He pulled out his cell phone. House and Cuddy sat motionless, silent. Wilson's finger hovered for a moment, then moved away from the screen. "No. I can't do it. She's right, House; I do believe you're innocent by now. I may be a cheating scoundrel, but I can't turn somebody in who doesn't deserve it. And since you're innocent, there's still a cold-blooded murderer running around out there, and he needs to be stopped. In fact, what I wanted to talk to you about tonight, Lisa, why I was looking for you. I had a new idea on this case today."

It was House's turn to look stunned. "Why would you still want to help me?"

Wilson gave him a tentative smile. "Because you could use a friend."

After a moment, Cuddy's expression softened, too. "Come sit down, James. Let's have a differential. And this time, Maestro, with you helping us, we're going to crack this thing."


	18. Chapter 18

A/N: Yes, an update! Sorry for the pace on this one (and most likely future ones). I have all sorts of more urgent balls in the air I'm juggling at the moment. That said, I do promise that this story will be finished, as well as future ones I get into. They are all blocked out mentally. I don't start posting a story without the complete plan in mind. I just have to find time for transferring to paper/keyboard. Phantom probably has two chapters left, maybe three. No guarantees on schedule, but I do have the day off August 1st, and while there's a long to-do list, I will get tired of physical work before the end of the day, I'm sure. So you might get a chapter then. The next chapter will be very exciting.

And yes, after Phantom, there is more in my series. At least two major stories, and more may join the line before those are done. We shall see.

(H/C)

Wilson after a moment walked across to the nearest chair in this small waiting room and sat down. He was still staring at House, but his first question wasn't focused on his whereabouts the last ten years. "Why does she call you Maestro?" he asked.

"Spend enough time around him, and you'll understand," Cuddy replied. "His specialty is solving puzzles. Speaking of which, we'd better dig into this one ASAP before somebody else recognizes you. You said you had an idea, James?"

"Yes. We're focusing an awful lot on House, his background, people who had a grudge against him. I just wondered if we should look more into the _landlord's_ history. Maybe the location was pure coincidence, and they were just after the landlord."

House shook his head. "No. To the second comment, not the first. Someone might well have been trying to kill two birds with one stone, literally as far as one of them, but I have trouble believing that anybody just happened to walk randomly into my apartment and encounter the man they wanted to kill there."

"But what if the landlord himself made the appointment?" Wilson asked.

"In _my_ apartment? With somebody who didn't even know who I was? I can't see it. Besides, coming in was unusual. That man hated me. He never came in, not once that I can remember after I moved there. He would stand at the door to chew me out for excessive noise and such, and he'd just glance in with his lip curling a little bit, like it was beneath him to enter."

Cuddy stepped in. "House - Maestro. I'm sorry to have to ask you, but it really would help us to know what exactly happened that day from your point of view."

He looked over at her, scrutinizing her for suspicion, finding none. One hand massaged his leg gently, something she doubted he was even aware of. Finally, he spoke slowly. "Normal day up until then - for the new normal that is. I went to PT. When I came home, the door was unlocked. I never left it unlocked, not even when I was home. There's no way I forgot to lock it leaving. So I was already on guard." He paused and cleared his throat.

Cuddy looked over at the two vending machines in this room. "What about a drink and a snack while we talk?" She didn't mention the limited selection. To someone who had spent ten years with a microfridge and a jar of peanut butter, this was five star. As she opened her purse, though, she swore under her breath. "All I've got on me tonight is a twenty, and the machine won't take that."

Wilson looked at House, who shrugged and prominently displayed both empty hands. With a sigh, Wilson stood up and fished out his own wallet. He bought them each a soft drink and a snack, delivered them, and sat back down. House studied the can of Coke as if it were the holy grail, then opened it and took a long drink, savoring the taste like priceless wine.

"Have you even had a Coke in the last ten years?" Wilson asked curiously. "Where have you been hiding out, anyway?"

"Doesn't matter," House replied shortly. "Back to that day, when I opened the door, he was in the floor, lying on his side. Pool of blood around his head. I knew he was dead, but I did go over to check for a pulse. Then -" He paused for another drink of Coke, gulping it more than savoring it this time. "Then I went over to the sink to wash up; I had some blood on me from checking him. Then I left."

Cuddy was filling in her own gaps silently. Wilson filled them in less than silently, but there was genuine sympathy in his eyes. "The stories said your mother died that day. You didn't know before going to PT, or you wouldn't have called it a normal day that far. Did you get the call telling you about her right then, when you were looking at his body?"

House shuddered. "Not going to ask why I ran if I'm innocent?"

"Actually, no. If you did find out about your mom while standing in a murder scene, that would be enough to overload anybody. I can understand running." There was sincerity there, and House looked back up from his Coke can to study Wilson in a silent differential. "I _do_ wonder why you stayed away for ten years without ever fighting it," Wilson continued, "but running that day, I can see that."

Cuddy tried to wrestle this conversation back on track. "Maestro, did you see anything that might be important? Any clue that jumped out at you?"

House shook his head. "He was dead. That was all I could take in."

She hated to ask her next question, but she had to. "Maestro, thinking about people who might have done this, who could have wanted to frame you. Is there any chance that it was - somebody close to you?" She didn't name his father. She didn't have to. He heard her loud and clear.

His back straightened up, and a point of anger ignited in his eyes, but his reply was rock solid, closing that line of thought with echoing finality. "No."

Wilson looked from one to the other of them in confusion. "Somebody close to him? What do you mean?"

"Drop it, James," Cuddy snapped. "Okay, back to the landlord. That is a good idea you had. Maybe not just focused on him, like House said, but both of you, not just one. Think. Did you have any common enemies?"

House snorted. "If we did, I wasn't aware of them. The man probably had all sorts of enemies. He was not only a landlord; he was a jerk of one. I can only imagine the line of former upset tenants. It's possible that one of them also disliked me from the clinic or as a former inpatient or such, but if so, I didn't know him. Didn't know about the connection, anyway."

"Him." Wilson repeated the word. "What about a woman, maybe? Men kill more often, but there have been female murderers."

"No." House was definite. "Landlord was large. He went down like a felled tree, no struggle at all, and his head was bashed in. It takes some force to do that to a skull. I'd say we're looking for not only a man but a large and powerful one."

"Anger can add to strength," Wilson pointed out.

House considered. "Valid point. But I still think it was a man. This was so thought out. Not a moment of rage, and again, it happened in _my_ apartment. Not spur of the moment. There's too much planning for hot anger. It was a cold, calculating anger. That kind doesn't quite add as much to your strength in the moment like adrenaline-rush rage does."

"Back to the apartment," Cuddy said. "The landlord obviously unlocked the door and went in. Why would they meet _there_? Especially if he hardly ever went in."

The room was silent for a moment. "Looking for something?" House suggested. "Planting something? Nothing was found there incriminating, though. I hadn't really thought about this much, but the landlord definitely would have liked to kick me out. Unfortunately, it's not quite that easy with notice required and tenant laws and such. It's a pain of a process. Much easier to get me out of there if I'm arrested and make the quick move from the apartment to jail. Suppose the killer also had a grudge against me, had a grudge against both of us. Suppose he contacted the landlord and suggested planting something in my apartment to get me in legal trouble, only he intended to kill the landlord all along. Landlord agreed to meet him there. But once they were alone, instead of planting evidence -" House smacked one hand into the other dramatically.

"That makes as much sense as any idea we've had," Wilson said. "What do you mean you hadn't thought about this much? What else have you had to think about for ten years besides who framed you?"

"Drop it," Cuddy repeated firmly. "Okay, running with that idea for a moment. You had a mutual enemy. He suggested to the landlord framing you for something, and they then would notify the police. Only he actually meant to kill the landlord and frame you for that all along. Killing somebody is way beyond most people's grudges. So is framing for murder. _Think_ , House. We're not talking a small grudge. We don't know the landlord's side, but you probably know yours. Who had you _really_ offended in the last few months?"

"Nobody," House snapped. "I hadn't done a damned thing for months except try to _walk_." His hand went to his thigh again, and that time, Cuddy was sure he was aware of it.

"Take it easy." Wilson stood up and went to the vending machines again, moving slowly, giving them a small breather. "Your Coke is empty, and mine's not far from it. Want something else, Lisa?"

"No, thanks, James." Just then, with Wilson's back turned as he fed money into the vending machine, she reached over and put a hand on House's arm, giving it a warm squeeze. He jumped as if shot, startled, then stared down at her fingers on his arm while his fingers were on his leg. His expression was absolutely bewildered. Cuddy gave him a reassuring smile and another squeeze of her fingers, then released as Wilson turned back around.

"This was very planned out, like you said." She picked back up the differential after Wilson had delivered the second Coke and House had had a good swallow of it. "Maybe the grudge against you came earlier, and the grudge against the landlord was more recent, plus added time to get the details worked out. Take it back a few more months, Maestro. Back when you were working. Do you think the grudge against you most likely came from an encounter at the hospital?"

He nodded firmly. "That was pretty much all I did. Work. It was the most interesting part of life."

"You mentioned the clinic," Wilson put in. "I'm sure you could make some enemies on rounds, too. Can you remember anybody you ever _really_ offended, beyond the usual clueless patient? Anybody large, powerful, with controlled anger issues?"

At that moment, House jumped again, literally, and his head came up. Both of them saw the blue lightning in his eyes. Both of them heard the thoughts flying past, the puzzle pieces clicking into place at full speed. "Maybe - there was one - he was actually a policeman himself."

Cuddy sat up straight in her chair. A policeman himself. Who better to commit a murder and know how to frame somebody than a policeman himself? "Who, Maestro?" and Wilson, similarly upright in his chair, was only a slightly delayed echo. "Who?"

House looked from one of them to the other. "His name was Tritter."


	19. Chapter 19

A/N: I'm worn out, packed day, but here's a short update. A LOT happens in the next chapter, in which most questions (about the case, anyway) will be revealed. By the way, I've had a new idea for another story in my series, which if it pans out would make three in line. Working title: Nexus.

Enjoy and thanks for reading!

(H/C)

"Tritter." Cuddy leaned forward, closing the distance a little. "Do you think he would go this far, Maestro?"

House nodded. "He - he wouldn't let go of a vendetta. I haven't thought of him in years, but yes, I think he could take it as far as murder."

"What kind of vendetta?" Wilson asked curiously. The other two looked at him, and then Cuddy nodded.

"It's relevant, I'm afraid. We have to prove motive. In fact, we really need a double motive here, but hopefully we can fill in the other half for the landlord later if we have the right killer."

House sighed. "We would do clinic hours, and the most annoying idiots were in there. Either STDs or emergency sniffles or overreacting parents."

"We still do have to do a few clinic hours, and they still are," Wilson commiserated.

"So one day, Tritter was in there. STD. He was already annoyed by the time I got there from the wait. One of those jerks who thought he should never have to spend a minute of his life in line. I diagnosed him, and I told him to tell any partners he had to be checked, and I did make that plural. He got all offended and went off on how dare I imply that he was cheating on his wife. He was so offended that I was _sure_ he was cheating on his wife. He even started -" House paused for a drink of his Coke. "He started getting physical. Not actually hitting out but trying to use his size and build to intimidate me into apologizing. I refused, and he filed a complaint. Brenda backed me up on his being annoyed even before he went in, and old Nordy, who was chief of staff right then, refused to take any action. Tritter really had no grounds. It was medically relevant to ask for partners to be tested. That should have ended it, but as luck would have it, Tritter's wife came in as a patient in infectious diseases two weeks later."

Cuddy cringed. "Complications of STD?"

"No, actually. It turned out to be another source. But I did remember the name, and I asked her if she had been checked for STDs recently. Tritter was in the room then, and he got all annoyed and threatening again and wound up filling in a whole lot more of the story from his side than I had. She hadn't even known he was being treated. He'd never mentioned it. Once Tritter was in full steam, he said something that did indicate that he had been cheating, and I pointed it out in front of her. From that point on, Tritter was -" House paused again. "He was offended by my presence, and he had to cut me down. On anything. The whole rest of that case, which took several days, whatever I suggested, whatever I was trying to do, and I _was_ just working on it medically, he needed me to be wrong. He never seemed to be able to let it go. We did finally diagnose the wife, but she said she was going to divorce him."

"Did she?" Wilson asked.

"I have no idea. It was a medical case, Wilson. That's all. I don't follow up on people's personal lives; once it stopped being medically relevant, that was it for me."

"Doesn't sound like much for a motive in a murder case," Wilson said.

"It was the _attitude_ ," House emphasized. "The man was a megalomaniac, and I hurt his image in front of others. Furthermore, he never got in a successful counter jab to knock me down in front of my people. When someone has a living reminder of their failing, it can fester with them. With the right kind of personality, it _can_ build up to extreme measures, and they would think it's justified. But yes, I'll admit, he didn't swear at that moment that he would ruin my life or frame me. If it had been something that obvious, I would have thought of him long since. And really, the bigger motive would have to be for the landlord; he really killed him. Assuming he did kill him. But people who are like that aren't-"

"Sane?" Cuddy suggested.

House shook his head. "They are sane. They can control their actions, but mentally, they have a different way of viewing the world than most people. That's definitely not saying that they aren't responsible, but they really can take one perceived insult to their image and build a lifetime of dishing out punishment to someone else from it."

"You sure seem to know a lot about the personality for having just met the guy in the clinic and then on a case," Wilson noted.

House flinched but didn't say anything. Cuddy firmly stepped into the gap. "We need to get out of here," she said. "House, this place is too exposed for you now. Somebody is going to recognize you. We've got to get somewhere safe while we figure out how to catch this guy. Assuming he's guilty, but whether he is or not, the longer you stay out in the hospital, the more likely it is that you'll get identified."

"I could -" he started, then glanced at Wilson and stopped.

"Go back to the other side of the hospital?" Wilson asked. Both of the others looked at him in surprise. "It's pretty obvious once I think about it. You wouldn't totally run away from medicine, I think, and you'd hide somewhere private but still familiar. Besides, I heard Lisa up on the roof that first night calling for somebody named Maestro. I didn't see anybody, but knowing now that that's what she calls you, it's easy to fill in the gaps. You've been hiding out over there for 10 years. But what I don't understand is why you never tried to break this case before once you got over the shock of being framed."

"Never mind," Cuddy said firmly. "Maestro, don't go back there. Come home with me, at least for tonight. I have a computer, and I'm sure you can do a lot more with it than I could in research on this. Plus you could even sleep in a bed."

He tensed up there, his eyes falling to his crippled leg. Cuddy hadn't meant that invitation as he had taken it, and she went on. "I didn't mean that. I mean -" She couldn't deny that the idea had crossed her mind at times in the last months in her long discussions with that velvet voice from the shadows, but the murder case was the most urgent issue right now. Every minute he spent in the open increased his exposure. They had to get this solved. "I mean we have to get this case solved. Call my place a base of operations. It's safer than here."

He studied her for a long moment, and time paused for the response. Finally, as if stepping through a door, he nodded once. "Okay."

"Now, let's figure out how to sneak you out of here," Wilson said. "The main entrance gets closed this late, and people have to come in through the ER area, which has the most people around. What if we got a wheelchair and pretended you were a patient?"

House stood so quickly that his leg objected. "No. I'm walking out of here. Most patients in the ER waiting room will be oblivious, tied up with their own issues, but the hospital employees are another story. There is just a chance that somebody down there might have enough years here to remember me. What about a diversion?"

Diversion it was, with Wilson, stopping at the ER front desk to say goodnight, knocking off most of what was on the top of the counter. In the flurry as he overapologized and tried to resort it and knocked it further awry in the process, the staff around who weren't tied up directly with a patient right then bent to help, and House and Cuddy marched as quickly as they could past.

Once outside, Cuddy led the way to her car in the doctor's parking lot, and House got in. Wilson came hurrying out just as she closed the passenger's door. "Lisa," he called. She turned back and fidgeted a bit as she waited.

"We need to get going, James."

"I know. I just wanted to say - I'm sorry."

She nodded. "I am, too, James. About other issues, if the police show up at my apartment door a few hours from now, I might commit murder myself."

"They won't. I mean, I won't. I mean - I do think he's innocent. Really. Can I come over for breakfast tomorrow to help strategize?"

She softened a little. "As long as that's all you plan to do, yes." At that moment, the horn on her car blew, startling them both. They jumped and looked in as House reached across to hit it again. He then reopened the passenger's door.

"Come on, this isn't the bad ending to a B movie. Cut the regrets and let's get out of here."

Wilson straightened up, starting to get offended, but then had to laugh at the turn of phrase. "Night, House," he said. He spun around and headed for his own car.

Cuddy got into the driver's seat. "Nothing fancy, I'm afraid, but it runs," she said.

House shrugged. "Runs better than anything else I've been in the last ten years."

She smiled and started it up. She watched him as she drove through Princeton. He was looking around in part amazement that he was out here, part analysis at the changes during his exile. She managed to leave off serious conversation at least half the way home, but then she couldn't stifle the question any longer. "Maestro," she asked, "what are you going to do?"

He looked over at her. A full minute of silence passed. "I don't know yet," he said finally. "Like you said, the murder case comes first. Or second, but we already went through what came first."

"Yes. James Wilson isn't a bad friend, but I hadn't realized what a relationship with him would be like. Thank you for that." The admission was hard for her. She, too, like Tritter, had an image that she liked to keep for the world. Or at least, she had a long-ingrained and too-harsh expectation, drilled in by her father, of nothing but success, personally and professionally. "Go to hell," she muttered to the stern voice of disappointment that had whispered in her ear for so long.

She didn't realize she'd spoken aloud until House replied. "I've already been. It isn't worth the trip."

"I didn't mean that to you." The second sentence registered belatedly, and she had to laugh. "I think I've at least visited myself. And no, it isn't worth the trip."

The darkened car sliced on through the shadows and lights of the city, heading for her apartment, and both of the passengers for the moment were silent in the weight of the journey.


	20. Chapter 20

A/N: Just a note, since several folks are asking lately. Yes, the story WILL be finished. In fact, it already is mentally. Just no time.

In August, a coworker went out with a surgery that will take her a few months to recover from. I was asked to become her as well as me to help cover things in the interim, and the schedule got crazy. She has just started back part time, though still in and out and not fully herself yet. Hopefully things will get better soon. Meanwhile, music season started with full rehearsals schedule. Plus a whole slew of medical tests and appointments myself, by far the most extensive physical workup I've ever had in my life. Nothing's wrong with me; this is part of the "preventing dementia" course I've set for myself. One of Mom's health errors was that she avoided all doctors like the plague, and I know for a fact that she had a couple of physical health issues going on that she was in denial of for years before her mental symptoms started to develop. I am doing everything I can to avoid that course, and one thing was that I had picked out this year several years ago, in fact over a decade ago with the date suggested by the neuropsychologist who first diagnosed Mom's dementia, to get the supersized, checking for anything developing general medical checkup. All results good so far, one test remaining next week. But between extra work, music, and doctors, I've hardly had time to turn around the last weeks, much less write.

But the story is fine, and it will come. I was actually working just the other day mentally on the third story in my series out, called Nexus. The scaffolding is going up nicely on it. There are three stories in the series on tap, The Other Foot, (name withheld at the moment), and Nexus. There are probably two more chapters on Phantom if they break out like I figured.

Sorry for the delay, but it will come.


	21. Chapter 21

A/N: Sorry again for the pace on this one. Some other folks at work continue to have a truly awful year, and that has majorly impacted demands on me. Then music takes up a lot of what lessened free time I have. This story will be finished, though, and as I've said, there are more in my series. On the positive side, I did spend some time today with my Dad, two and a half years into his battle with stage IV cancer, and he's doing better the last few months than at any other time since he was diagnosed. Happy Thanksgiving to all.

(H/C)

Cuddy woke up disoriented from a dream of music in the shadows. It took her a moment to realize that there actually _was_ music in the shadows. The tune was soft, wandering, mournful yet skilled. It swept under her closed bedroom door and summoned her.

The Maestro. House. It had taken her a long time to get to sleep, lost in the delicious fact that he was here, that the self-imposed prison of ten years had been escaped from at least for now. She vowed to herself that she wouldn't let him retreat from everything again. No, they _had_ to solve this case.

She stood and padded to the door. She had gone to sleep with it open in case he had needed her; he must have closed it to try not to disturb her. She opened it now stealthily and crept out on cat feet. Her small two-bedroom apartment wasn't much, but she was enjoying not having a roommate for the first time in her life. None from school had ever measured up to her organization, dedication, and work ethic, and their habits had driven her crazy, not to mention their opinions that she carried neatness and planning too far ("obsessive" and "anal" were words that had come up frequently). No, she enjoyed her independence. However, like most people living alone in a two-bedroom apartment, she had turned the spare bedroom into storage. It had a twin bed, never until this night occupied, but there was also an assortment of boxes and of things that she rarely used. It was, of course, a logically organized storage space, but it was much more of a storage space than a guest bedroom.

One thing stored there was the guitar. Cuddy didn't play an instrument herself, but her last roommate had gone through a guitar phase, vowing to learn to play for stress relief. It certainly hadn't proven to be stress release for Cuddy, as the other medical student had no talent whatsoever, as even she had to admit before long. However, her roommate had left medical school two days early due to a hospitalized relative, had packed in a hurry, and had forgotten the guitar, which had been tucked under the bed. Cuddy found it later when checking in an organized (but not obsessive, she insisted to herself) way that her roommate had cleared everything out. She contacted the other woman, offering to mail it, but was told no, a trip to the northeast in the next year was a possibility, so the owner would simply drop by to retrieve it when passing through Princeton.

There it had sat for months in the spare room, ignored except by Cuddy's occasional annoyed glances. Obviously, the Maestro had found it tonight when he woke up in the small hours. He had taken it out, closed her bedroom door, and retreated to the living room chair that was farthest from her location, and now he was playing softly.

Cuddy walked with infinite care to the edge of the short hall and looked around. No lights were on, but she could see him vaguely in the street lamp through the window. He didn't notice her, fully absorbed in the music, as focused as he could sometimes get on a case.

She stood silently, listening, and realized quickly that the reason she disliked guitar music was that she had never before heard anyone who could actually play it. This was remarkable. The piano had more depth and texture, but House's dexterous fingers owned this instrument, now caressing it, now demanding more of it. The music wandered through several melodies that she didn't know, but at times, the serenade that he had composed for her and played that day in his lair crept in, making her wonder if the other parts, too, were original.

He stopped, and she tensed up, but he still hadn't realized her presence. He felt along his mutilated leg, not massaging out a spasm but mapping a familiar if detested country. Then he let it go and raised his hands, holding them up before his face and studying them in the dim light. He flexed them, considering them, then reached back down to the leg. Leg. Hands. Leg. Hands. The disability. The ability and coordination that even now remained. His face was a study in differential. Finally, he picked back up the guitar, and the music resumed.

Cuddy, feeling suddenly like a peeping tom, turned away and walked back silently to her room, closing the door again carefully. She lay in bed and listened to the music until it carried her back into dreams - and then followed her on into them.

(H/C)

The next time she woke up, it was early morning. The apartment was silent. She stood and put her robe back on, then opened the door. The door to the other bedroom was shut, but standing there, her ears straining for any sound, she heard soft snores. He was asleep. With a smile, she went on about her morning routine.

She had just finished yoga when the bedroom door opened, and he hobbled out. "Good morning, Maestro!" she greeted him.

He looked at her for a long moment, then replied, "Good morning," as if he hadn't spoken the words in forever, which he probably hadn't. He went into the bathroom, and she headed for the kitchen and made coffee. When he limped in and dropped into a chair at the table a few minutes later, she turned to him. "Coffee's just about ready. How do you like it?"

Again, there was that impression of startled analysis of the question. She wondered how many years it had been since he had heard that. More than just his exile, most likely. The drought probably extended back to before his infarction, when he and Stacy were living normal lives, blissfully unaware of the approaching calamity. "Two sugars, no cream," he replied finally.

She fixed them each a cup, then joined him at the table. "Wilson's coming over for breakfast, and after that, we'll get this case broken today somehow. Have you thought of anything yet?"

He nodded. "I've got a couple of ideas for how to approach it. First, though, before Wilson gets here, I have a question for you."

She heard the implied request for permission. This was House at the moment, not the Maestro. "Sure. What do you want to ask me?"

"Tell me about your father."

She tensed up. Whatever she had expected him to ask, that wasn't it. "He - he was very demanding. Still is."

"In what way?" The words tumbled over each other quickly on the way out.

"He's a quite successful businessman. Everything for him is defined in terms of success, measured not just in money but in status, promotions. For instance, he realizes that I have to go through medical school and residency and all the steps to become a practicing doctor, but even now, he expects me to be at the head of any group I'm in, and within just a few years, I'm sure nothing less than a head of a department would suit him. He wants his daughter to be the best."

House relaxed a little. "Is that all?"

The question annoyed her at first. "Is that _all_? Do you know what it's like as a kid to never measure up, to -" She skidded to a verbal halt, remembering her own conclusions about John House from her conversation with House's aunt Charity. Yes, as annoying as constant perfectionism was, when compared to outright sadistic violence and intentional cruelty, it wasn't in the same league. He was concerned about her, she realized, wanting to make sure her background didn't match his. "Yes, that's all," she said.

He relaxed some more. "You have nothing to worry about. You are going to be a top-notch doctor."

"What was -" She pulled herself up again with the rest of the sentence unspoken. No, she wasn't going to ask him what his father was like. This morning, with all they had to accomplish today on the murder case, was the wrong time to get him to lock up. She knew the answer anyway, knew from his eyes that her analysis was correct. He didn't need to say it. "It's all right," she said. "You don't have to tell me."

He had been gearing himself up to go into full defensive retreat, and her own retreat startled him. After a moment, he admitted, "I heard you two nights ago on the roof telling your father off."

Her own words replayed in her memory. _"This is my life. It's not yours, not any longer. I have the right to live it for myself."_ She smiled at him. "That was the first time, believe it or not. It took me a lot of years to get to the point of being able to say that. Of course, I wasn't saying it directly to him, but still, saying it at all was a step forward."

He nodded. "A big step forward."

At that moment, Wilson's knock came on the door, and Cuddy drained the last few swallows of her coffee and went to let him in. They had to solve this murder case. They had to solve some other things, too, but at least for those, there was time.


End file.
